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1 



LOOKING BEYOND: 



A SOUVENIR OF LOVE 



TO THE 



BEREFT OF EVERY HOME. 



By J.^o/bARRETT. 



Better, my friend, I feel the daisies growing o'er me. Keats 
Let the light enter. Gcethe. 









J /% 



BOSTON: 
WILLIAM WHITE AND COMPANY, 

"BANNER OF LIGHT" OFFICE, 

158 Washington Street. 

NEW YORK AGENTS: THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 

119 Nassau Street. 

1871. 



r' 






The Library 
of Congress 

washington 

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, 

BY J. O. BARRETT, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
No. 19 Spring Lane. 



^> 



DEDICATED 

TO 

MY ANGEL MOTHER. 



Dear Reader : 

Herein you will find a K Sunny philosophy," — "a 
balm for every wounded heart." Its sweet truths, arid 
its consoling revelations from the "better land," will be 
needed by all. For we are all journeying thither, and 
do ask for light to shine upon the way. Mine is hum- 
ble, — but a single ray, — while the great sun of 
heavenly benediction remains unmeasured. I may 
show you, perhaps, where its founts of divine baptism 
are. "Come and see." 

I am indebted to many friends, and especially to 
Mrs. Sarah C. Dunbar, of East Boston, Mass., for 
facts herein stated. A thousand thanks. 

That we all, as witnesses of the truth, may have a 
candid hearing, and that the inspirations we here have 
breathed, may enflower the path of every bereft heart, 
is the sincere prayer of your 

Faithful Brother, 

J. O. B. 

Glen Beulah, Wis., July, 1871. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

LIFE'S MYSTIC KEY .9 



THE NEW BIRTH 46 

THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST. ... 90 



LOOKING BEYOND. 



FIFE'S MYSTIC KEY. 

" O Bearer of the Key 
That shuts and opes with a sound so sweet ! 
Its turning in the wards is melody ! " 

ALIVE is even the crystal — one of our mother's 
tears. All is life. The minerals, metals, vege- 
tations, animals, soils, waters, atmospheres, are bun- 
dles of life. The microscope reveals an infusorial world 
— living creatures in corals, in drops of water, in flakes 
of snow, in grains of sand, on every leaf a colony, 
grazing like oxen upon a meadow, and in the mold 
of decaying bodies a forest of beautiful trees, with the 
branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit. "There exists no 
dead anatomy ; what seems to be such is only another 
body." 

O for an acoustic instrument, that we may lay our 
ears upon the growing or dying grasses and insects, 
upon thoughtless brains and pulseless hearts, and hear 
the sweet melodies at these feasts of joy ! 

9 



10 LOOKING BEYOND. 

Nothing is without its use. Down in the sea's deeps 
are the rarest pearls ; under the mountains are the pur- 
est silver and gold ; under the ice is the crystal current ; 
under the mantling snow are embosomed germs of plants 
and flowers. In time they come forth — born again — 
more beautiful for the destructions whence they are de- 
veloped. If the angry waves and floating weeds dash 
against the fish in ocean, lake, and stream, scales and 
shells are formed to protect these happy tribes. If wind 
and frost chill the tender shoot of the tree, they harden 
a garment of bark, that says to the heart within, "Lie 
still, my darling ; all is safe ; I gird you round." How 
we love the sweet, white lily ! Let us be grateful for 
the mud in which it was rooted and fed, for the ripples 
that cradled it, for the sunlight that wooed it forth in 
summer — the fairest flower in the world. 

On every plan of being Nature climbs to perfection. 
Says Hudson Tuttle, in his Arcana, " Nature, by one 
plan ever pursued, seeks one grand and glorious aim — 
the illumination of an immortal intelligence. From the 
chaotic beginning, through the monsters of the prime- 
val slime, through all the evanescent forms of being, 
up to man, that plan has been undeviatingly followed, 
and that aim held in view. Without this attainment 
creation is a gigantic failure, and the results are object- 
less combinations of causes. The great Tree of Life 
strikes its roots deep into the soil of the elemental 
world, and stretches up its branches into the present. 
Its perfect fruit is Man, immortal in his spiritual life." 

Never die the souls of the species. These shall 
remain in their integrity forever. Am I not nature, 



life's mystic key. 11 

and nature I? I breathe upon a rock, and a part of 
myself is there invisibly crystallized ; upon a leaf, and I 
am in the leaf. The touch of hearts marries them, and 
the pulse is different. A particle of water in the ocean 
is a distinct individuality, unlike the rest : dissolve it 
into hydrogen and oxygen, or analyze each of these, — 
if it be possible, — and in essence it is ye.t the same. 
Bring the electric battery, and it is water again. What 
if I be dissolved ? Am I lost ? Is there an outside to 
the universe? Be, then, afraid of nothing. What 
combines all should be master. As said the wise Brah- 
min, "Make pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory 
and defeat, the same, and then prepare for battle." 
With the power of God, what chance is there for death? 
Blot it out forever ! " There was no beginning, and lo ! 
also, there is no ending ! " 

I find myself in everything. I am enveloped in the 
aura of the universe. I am traceable to atomic affini- 
ties — the rock my brother, the plant my sister ; every 
motion, every sensation, every coloring is in me repre- 
sented. I have life-webs inwoven with all the past, 
threading out into the future, all planes of being touched, 
in the infinite climbing. Does matter then ultimate in 
spirit? As well ask, Does spirit ultimate in matter? 
How can the ever-changeable reach an ultimate? Bu- 
zurgi, the Persian poet, tells the whole story : — 

1 What is the soul ? The seminal principle from the 
loins of eternity. 

t? This world is the womb ; the body its enveloping 
membrane. 

!? The bitterness of dissolution Dame Fortune's pangs 
of childbirth. 



12 LOOKING BEYOND. 

"What is death? To be born again, an angel of 
eternity." 

The progressive arc is the material side — matter 
refining ; the descending arc is spirit enveloping itself 
in it — taking up to itself to make our world the " image 
of the heavenly." Sphere within sphere ! How far 
up the chain of being ? Ask the soul — ask angels ! 

Formation and growth are through the conjunction of 
two forces — feminine and masculine — negative and 
positive — centripetal and centrifugal. Buds, flowers, 
fruit, all forms, are the children of this union. Quali- 
tatively is combined in one what there is in two. The 
individual is the social in epitome. Hence affiliation 
into marriages, families, societies, nationalities. 

Soul is the maternal, molding force ; spirit is the 
quickening, electrifying force. The principles are re- 
ciprocal — bride and bridegroom, mother and father — 
never twain, but one personality, inseparable as love 
and thought. 

As the feminine and masculine principles, fecundating 
the plant, sip up elements of vitality through the medi- 
um of the roots and leaves, culminating in flower and 
seed, so soul and spirit, conjointly acting as the builders, 
form the spiritual or celestial body through the medium 
of the physical — the fruit of the spirit, the residence 
of the angel within. Thus the spirit changes houses. 
The new is the "house of many mansions." Says the 
Brahmin Seer, in the Bhagvat Geeta* — 

* Written by an ancient, learned Hindoo, based upon a then popu- 
lar system of religion, recognizing Brahm as Deity and Kreeshna as 
the second incarnate Deity. The ancient Hindoos were a polished 



life's mystic key. 13 

" As a man throweth away old garments and putteth 
on new, even so the soul, having quitted its old mortal 
frames, entereth into others that are new." 

Physical surfaces are spiritual centers. Nature forms 
her perfections in highest latitudes. The coarser ma- 
terial is nearer the center. Rocks are down deep in the 
earth. On its surface are the verdure, flowers, birds, 
beasts, air, sunshine, the most active electricities, and 
man the coronation of all. A rightly-constructed dwell- 
ing is most beautiful in its upper stories ; its foundation 
is rock, lying on the ground. . The roses are not on the 
roots, but on the tips ; and the highest on the bush, 
having the most sunshine, are the sweetest and fairest. 
Electricities act upon surfaces. The dome of the skjr 
is above us, curtained with blue, red, and golden clouds 
by day, and bright stars by night. Central in our bodies 
are the coarse-fibered organs. The' bones, which are 
lowest down, are hard and crystallized ; nearer the sur- 
face are the finer organs. The nerves, and all the 
senses, have keen sensation on the surfaces. So the 
beautiful embodiment of the spirit is the blossoming 
forth of this physical body — the immortelle of life. 
Epes Sargent, author of "Planchette," quoting the basic 
argument of Allan Kardec, says, " The spirit body is no 
more the spirit than the body alone is the man ; for the 
spiritual body can not think ; it is to the spirit what the 
body is to the man, the agent or instrument of his 
action. The human form and that of the spirit body 

nation. The Bhagvat Geeta is characterized, symbolically, with 
deep spiritual thought. It has been republished from an English 
print by the Religio-Philosophieal Publishing House, Chicago, 111. 



14 LOOKING BEYOND. 

are identical ; and when the letter appears to us, it is 
generally with that particular exterior with which we 
were formerly familiar." 

The celestial body is nurtured by the elemental 
pabulum of the spirit world — atmospheres, and fruits, 
and drinks — analogous with this w r orld. Already we 
are beginning to discover what provision we must 
make to stow and sustain this " house not made with 
hands." 

Every organ of our being contributes something of 
ks own nature to the development of its spiritual body 
— organ for organ, hand for hand, brain for brain, heart 
for heart, circle for circle, to a completeness, having all 
we are now, represented in more beautiful form — the 
man perfected. According to this ratiocination, if the 
body is more animal in its functions than intellectual, 
passional than moral, so is the spiritual organism. A 
defective tree has defective fruit. A bitter fountain 
sends forth a bitter stream. As all there is of the body, 
even to habits, are nurturers of corresponding organs 
in the spirit, body, — allowing latitude for accidents that 
may not essentially mar the balance and beauty of the 
transmission, — the law of duty to organize and preserve 
this body in temperance and purity is most solemnly 
imperative. Since lust, and gluttony, and intemperance, 
and selfishness, and jealousy, and slander, and un- 
charity, poison and slime the functions of the body 
and its senses, so the spirit body, deriving thence its 
supplies for building, out of diseased materials, becomes 
correspondingly dark — an advance, but comparatively 
an ill-shaped and unhappy home. The truth of this 



life's mystic key. 15 

law is severely moral ; and how does it warn us what 
habits we cultivate, what associations we seek, what 
opinions we entertain ! Everything of this kind, good 
or evil, right or wrong, pure or impure, holy or unholy, 
enters materially into the composition of the spirit organ- 
ism, and there is no possible escape. A single thought, 
or deed, or habit, may warp the spirit for ages ; or, if 
orderly and true to Nature's law, advance us into ages 
of progress. As a healthy root makes a beautiful tree, 
as a love-child becomes a golden character in after years, 
so a good motive, a temperate life, a habit of charity, 
or a thought of holier conditions rising into ambition, 
incidentally engenders a glorified spirit body for the 
angel spirit to live in. We are building every moment 
of our lives on earth, not only character, but our im- 
mortal house. Which shall it be, dark or light, de- 
formed or beautiful, happy or unhappy, discordant or 
angelic ? 

With outer vision we see our physical body ; why not 
with inner vision see our celestial body ? — body, not the 
spirit. Is the spirit ever seen ? May be the super- 
archangels can even see soul and spirit, the essential 
principles of all being ; but media, generally, see only 
symbols of the spiritual, — others the light or spheres 
of the celestial bodies, — others see these organisms as 
they are in their divine beauty, but not yet the spirit 
within. As the celestial is a real organism, it certainly 
comes under the comprehension of the spiritual senses. 
Here is an objective world of causation, and we live in 
it ! What we see is simply the picture of the object. 
The medium between the spirit and body is the system 



16 . LOOKING BEYOND. 

of nerves. Wherever a nerve is, is spirit. By this the 
spirit has sensation and consciousness with its surround- 
ings. It is the telegraph of the spirit, and brain is its 
battery. Rays of light are the undulating carriers of 
the image of an object to the optic nerve, and then, 
by a beautiful chemistry, analogous with photographing, 
it is impressed where the mind catches it up into living 
consciousness. Here is a mystery, standing out as a 
fact for analysis. Now, when a subject is psychologized 
completely, his sphere, senses, will, and mind are, so 
to speak, swallowed up by the operator. They are en 
rapport with each other, when every emotion and thought 
of the controller is felt by the negative. It is the same 
as though they two were one brain and one affection. 
The subject sees the same pictures, or hears the same 
sounds trembling in the sensorium of the operator, 
whether it be a real image of an object and impression 
of melody, or a mental conception of such. Doubtless 
the chemical action of the one brain upon the other is 
analogous with that of light, since the results are the 
same. 

Now, there is spirit light. Moses saw it in the 
"burning bush," Ezekiel saw it as "the appearance of 
the likeness of the glory of the Lord," Jesus saw it as 
a " transfiguring cloud ; " our media see it flooding all 
our earth as "the sun of righteousness." By it our 
spiritual photographers are taking the likenesses of 
departed friends ; and angelic psychologists picture 
upon mediumistic brain the scenery of the immortal 
spheres. 

A. A. Wheelock, in an editorial to the "American 



life's mystic key. 17 

Spiritualist," wpeaks of Mrs. R. Robinson, of Oswego, 
N. Y., who, years ago, was mentally and physically 
prostrated from the effects of reflection upon the mon- 
strous dogmas of her church (Catholic), "in which 
condition spirits were enabled to get control of her 
organism, causing the body to lie in an unconscious 
state for three days. So complete was the entrance- 
ment, so fully were the outer senses of the body closed, 
that no signs of life were visible, and preparations were 
made for the burial of her body." 

Saved from premature burial, and true to her en- 
lightenments, she became a Spiritualist ; but her sick- 
ness totally blinded her outer senses. May be it is but 
a psychological vail. While thus blind, she sees clair- 
voyantly persons and objects in the darkest room, and 
accurately describes them. 

The spirit light is musical in its undulations and fra- 
grant from those floral kingdoms. Hence by the psy- 
chological agency of a spirit we can sense the aromas 
of those "paradises of God"; can smell, hear, taste, 
touch, see the spiritual ; and can actually, as spirits, 
step out from our physical temples without the process 
of real death. Jung Stilling says, "Examples have 
come to my knowledge in which sick persons, overcome 
with an unspeakable longing to see some distant friend, 
have fallen into a swoon, during which they have ap- 
peared to the distant object of their affection." 

Professor George Bush, in his " Museum of Wonders," 

relates several instances — one of a trance medium in 

Philadelphia, who, at the solicitation of a lady anxious 

about her absent husband then in London, went as a 

2 



18 LOOKING BEYOND. 

spirit to that city, found him, and reported certain facts. 
On his return home, meeting this medium, he averred 
that he was actually visited by him in persona in Lon- 
don, having seen him there that very night. 

By the law of psychological sympathy, friends affec- 
tionally are a unity. It is very common for the one to 
know when the other is coming, before they meet. The 
experience of one affects the other. During our- late 
war, it is said that two brothers, standing side by side 
on the battle-field, fell dead at the same moment; but 
on examination only one was found hit by the bullet. 
This was death from sympathy. By the same law dis- 
eases are communicated, "revivals" carried on, revolu- 
tions projected, victories secured. Hence the spiritually- 
minded obtain news outside of conversation or the mails. 
All facts in heaven and earth are open as the day t<^ the 
inner world of the truly mediumistic. 

The appearance of apparitions is explainable by this 
law of sympathy. If a distant friend is soon to depart 
this life, those who are en rapport may receive the news 
at the time, or even before the event. Our spheres are 
like sun-rays, reaching ahead, announcing in advance 
as a telegraph. It is by use of this law that a powerful 
psychologist controls a variety of media, or that a spirit 
of this or the angel world will impressionally communi- 
cate with different friends at the same moment. As the 
least particle of lead is a cube and by nature represents 
the whole mine, so the most refined element of our 
sphere is ourself in essense, a living prism through 
.which we see our spirit or the spirit of a friend. When 
Dr. Underhill had thoroughly magnetized one of his 



life's mystic key. 19 

subjects, he asked, " What do you see?" "O, wonder- 
ful," replied the lad — "a thousand little Underhills 'on 
your arm ! " 

Theodore Parker, since ascended, when in his last 
earthly moments under the mellow skies of Florence, 
became conscious of his dual being. "There are two 
Theodore Parkers, the one here sick and struggling, the 
other at work at home." There was a friend reading 
at the time one of his great sermons in Music Hall. 
There were " two Theodore Parkers " — the shadow and 
the substance. 

On the lonely sea, earth-life seems lost behind the 
shrouds of mystic reverie. The thought of the great 
deep beneath us ! — how solemn, too, the calm heavens 
and watch-stars above ! how trustingly the soul drifts 
out to the " shining shore " on each widening wave ! 
Then we are spiritual in our meditations. Then spirits, 
haunting each ship and steamer, manifest themselves in 
ways so weird, so protectingly ! 

Robert Dale Owen, in his M Footfalls on the Boundary 
of the Spirit World," informs the reader, by evidence 
of a number of reliable witnesses, of Robert Bruce, first 
mate on board a bark trading between Liverpool and 
St. John, New Brunswick, who saw a stranger in the 
cabin writing at a desk on a slate. His gaze was 
solemn and steady. No one on board could account 
for this visitation. The captain, with the mate, soon after 
descended to the cabin. Not a soul could then be 
found. On the slate, in a strange handwriting, was the 
order, "Steer to the nor'-west I " Testing the chirogra- 
phy, no one on board wrote the same. Curiosity 



20 LOOKING BEYOND. 

excited, the captain changed the ship's course accord- 
ingly, and in a few hours rescued a vessel, with a large 
number of passengers, from imminent wreck. There 
the mate met again the very stranger — one of the im- 
perilled voyagers ! 

"It seems," exclaimed the mate to the captain, "that 
was not a ghost I saw to-day, sir ; the man's alive." 

" What do you mean ? Who's alive ? " 

"Why, sir, one of the passengers we have just 
saved is the man I saw writing on your slate at noon. 
I would swear to it in a court of justice." 

"Upon my word, Mr. Bruce," replied the captain, 
" this gets more and more singular. Let us go and see 
this man." 

They found him in conversation with the captain of 
the rescued ship. They both came forward, and ex- 
pressed in the warmest terms their gratitude for deliver- 
ance from a horrible fate — slow-coming death by 
exposure and starvation. 

The captain replied that he had but done what he was 
certain they would have done for him under the same 
circumstances, and asked them both to step down into 
the cabin. Then, turning to the passenger, he said, "I 
hope, sir, you will not think I am trifling with you ; but 
I would be much obliged to you if you would write a 
few wprds on this slate." And he handed him the slate, 
with that side up on which the mysterious writing was 
not. 

" I will do anything you ask," replied the passenger ; 
"but what shall I write?" 

" A few words are all I want. Suppose you write, 
e Steer to the nor'-westS " 



life's mystic key. 21 

The passenger, evidently puzzled to make out the 
motive for such a request, complied, however, with a 
smile. The captain took up the slate and examined it 
closely ; then stepping aside, so as to conceal the slate 
from the passenger, he turned it over, and gave it to 
him with the other side up. 

"You say that is your handwriting? " said he. 

W I need not say so," rejoined the other, looking at it, 
" for you saw me write it." 

"And this?" said the captain, turning the slate 
over. 

The man looked first at one writing, then at the 
other, quite confounded. At last, " What is the mean- 
ing of this?" said he; "I only wrote one of these. 
Who wrote the other ? " 

"That's more than I can tell you, sir. My mate 
here, says you wrote it, sitting at this desk, at noon 
to-day." 

The captain .of the wreck and the passenger looked 
at each other, exchanging glances of intelligence and 
surprise ; and the former asked the latter, " Did you 
dream that you wrote on this slate ? " 

"No, sir, not that I remember." 

"You speak of dreaming," said the captain of the 
bark. "-What was this gentleman about at noon 
to-day?" 

"Captain," rejoined the other (the captain of the 
wreck), "the whole thing is most mysterious and ex- 
traordinary ; and I had intended to speak to you about 
it as soon as we got a little quiet. This gentleman," 
pointing to the passenger, "being much exhausted, fell 



22 LOOKING BEYOND. 

into a heavy sleep, or what seemed such, some time 
before noon. After an hour or more he awoke, and 
said to me, * Captain, we shall be relieved this very- 
day.' When I asked him what reason he had for say- 
ing so, he replied that he had dreamed that he was on 
board a bark, and that she was coming to our rescue. 
He described her appearance and rig, and, to our utter 
astonishment, when your vessel hove in sight, she corre- 
sponded exactly to his description of her. We had not 
put much faith in what he said ; yet still we hoped there 
might be something in it, for drowning men, you know, 
will catch at straws. As it has turned out, I cannot 
doubt that it was all arranged, in some incomprehensible 
way, by an overruling Providence, so that we might be 
saved. To him be all thanks for his goodness to us." 

"There is not a doubt," rejoined the captain of the 
bark, "that the writing on the slate, let it have come 
there as it may, saved all your lives. I was steering, at 
the time, considerably south of west, and I altered my 
course for nor -west, and had a look-out aloft, to see 
what would come of it. But you say," he added, turn- 
ing to the passenger, " that you did not dream of writing 
on a slate ? " 

"No, sir. I have no recollection whatever of doing 
so. I got the impression that the bark I saw in my 
dream was coming to rescue us ; but how that impres- 
sion came I cannot tell. There is another very strange 
thing about it," he added. "Everything here on board 
seems to me quite familiar ; yet I am very sure I never 
was in your vessel before. It is all a puzzle to me. 
What did your mate see ? " 



life's mystic key. 23 

Thereupon Mr. Bruce related to them all the circum- 
stances above detailed. The conclusion they finally 
arrived at was, that it was a special interposition of 
Providence to save them from what seemed a hopeless 
fate. 

During the late rebellion, Geo. Jones, of Burlington, 
Wis., a soldier, being then in Philadelphia, whilst lying 
in his bunk, saw a pale light approaching, which in- 
creased in volume and intensity, and opened close to his 
pillow, when lo ! there reclined, as in a sick attitude, 
his little boy Oliver, then only four years old. The 
father, though filled with a heavenly joy, was apprehen- 
sive that his boy was soon to die. It was afterwards 
ascertained by a letter from his wife, that at that very 
hour of visitation — three o'clock in the afternoon — 
Oliver had been wrapped in a deep slumber in his cradle 
at home in Burlington ; rousing from which he called 
his mother, saying, "O, mamma, I've seen papa — I 
did see dear papa ! " In a few days, by diphtheria, th« 
child was taken higher. 

Professor W. D. Gunning furnishes the readers of his 
w Is it the Despair of Science ? " with the following proof 
of our duality of being : — 

"A few years ago, Mr. II., the father of my inform- 
ant, was captain of the ship Ann, which was owned in 
Richmond, by a Mr. Robinson. Captain H. was sailing 
from Richmond to Rio with a cargo of flour. The Ann 
had passed the capes of Virginia, and was going along 
smoothly with an eight-knot breeze, when Captain H. 
turned in to sleep. It was the first night out, and 
between twelve and four o'clock, when he dreamed that 



24 LOOKING BEYOND. 

he saw Robinson, the owner, standing beside his berth, 
dressed as usual, in a long black coat. He woke, 
thought nothing of the dream, and dropped to sleep. 
He dreamed the same dream again. He awoke a 
second time, and thought it a little strange that Robin- 
son, in that long black coat, should haunt his dreams. 
Again he dropped into a sleep, and a third time dreamed 
the same dream. When he rose in the morning, he 
observed strange movements among the crew, who were 
colored men. He called the mate, and asked what was 
the matter with the men. * Why, sir/ said he, *a ghost 
was seen here last night.' ? A ghost/' said the cap- 
tain: r tell me what he looked like.' 'Well, sir,' 
replied the mate, c he was a tall man, dressed in a long 
black coat, and he stood at the leeward gangway. He 
looked just like Mr. Robinson.' 'Did any other per- 
son see him?' asked the captain. 'Yes, sir,' said the 
mate, 'the whole watch saw him.' The captain called 
the watch, and examined the men separately. Each 
man testified to having seen the ghost, and said that it 
wore a long black coat, and stood at the leeward gang- 
way, and looked like Robinson. The Ann made a quick 
passage to Rio. No letters awaited the captain. The 
flour was sold : he started for home, and, in due time, 
the Ann was again off the capes of Virginia. When 
the pilot-boat came alongside, Mr. Ramsey, the pilot, 
broke the news to the captain that Robinson was dead ; 
that he died the first night his ship was out ; that his 
mind, to the last, was on the ship." 

" The following incident happened to an elderly lady 
friend," says H. Scott, of Lancaster, Ohio, "who is of 



life's mystic key. 25 

a high order of intellectual culture, and may be accepted 
as entirely accurate in every particular. She is an hon- 
ored member of an Orthodox church. She had a brother 
residing in a city more than two hundred miles distant, 
whom she had not seen for some time. At about three 
or four o'clock in the morning he stood before her in her 
bedchamber, robed in sleeping clothes. The sister was 
greatly pleased, and said, * Brother, is this you? 9 or 
* Brother, 1 am glad you have come, 9 He replied in 
a brotherly way, and, after some further interchange 
of words, he was gone. I inquired whether she had 
thought it a dream only, and whether she had had a 
consciousness of having passed from the sleeping to the 
waking state. She replied that it all seemed very real, 
and that she had no doubt it was the spirit of her 
brother. She said he appeared twenty years younger 
than he really was, and then called my attention to two 
portraits of him, which were hanging on the wall of the 
parlor, one of which was taken twenty years before the 
other, and was the one which represented him as she saw 
him in the vision, and caused her to say, ' Why, brother, 
hoiv young you look/ 9 Within a couple or three days 
she received a letter giving some of the particulars of 
her brother's death at about the hour she had seen him. 
She answered the letter, and spoke of her dream or 
vision; and in return, it was written that the brother 
seemed to have passed away for several minutes, and 
they had thought all was over, when he again partially 
revived and turned his eyes upon those about his bed, 
while a pleased expression lit up his face, but he did not 
speak, when his spirit took its filial leave. She believed 



26 LOOKING BEYOND. 

that during that brief interval of seeming death he was 
present with her. The letter also said that, after he 
was ? laid out/ he appeared twenty years younger than 
when alive." 

"A touching story," says The* Revolution, "is told 
of a young sister of Alice and Phoebe Cary, whose early 
death was deeply lamented by her friends. A few 
weeks before her departure, and while she was still in 
health, she appeared for some minutes to be plainly 
visible in broad daylight, to the whole family, across a 
little ravine from their residence, standing on the stoop 
of a new house they were then building, though she was 
actually asleep at that moment in a bedchamber of the 
old house, and utterly unconscious of this ? counterfeit 
presentment ' at some distance from her bodily presence. 
This incident is said to have given the sisters a strong 
interest in the phenomena of ? Spiritualism.' " 

All nature is a unit : all forces blend, as do drops in 
the ocean. Does not a touch upon any part of the 
human body affect the whole? Does not a little thought 
communicate itself to every nerve in the system ? So 
in the outer world — a common bond of sympathy is 
there. A wave of a lake, a slight zephyr, makes a 
motion through the great whole. Commensurate with 
its power, nothing is circumscribed in influence. 

Then a spirit is virtually present wherever any of its 
acts or relics exists, or its sympathy extends. Take 
a bar of magnetized steel ; divide or subdivide ; each 
piece is a distinct magnet. Separate them ten feet, a 
hundred, a thousand, a mile, any distance; do we thus 
destroy the reciprocal relation ? Not at all ; they im- 



life's mystic key. 27 

perceptibly respond. Mind is just as inseparable from 
its history. Between the mind and its sequences is an 
eternal union. What is memory but the registry of 
thought? Nothing is lost here. Its record-leaves are 
endless ; and every thought, every emotion, every act, 
every event, is indelibly impressed ; the chemistry of 
circumstances will at some time call it up in review. 
Persons resuscitated from the drowning state aver that 
the experiences of life flash before them in a moment. 
What a solemn truth is here — what a serious examina- 
tion at the judgment hour of memory some time to be ! 
How pathetically plead the very hours we live, to dot 
upon the soul beautiful deeds ! Nothing then is plainer 
than that we never can be separated from each other. 
All is one vast immortality. What if we pass away 
into the realm of spirit ; the memory lives and bright- 
ens with use, and the sympathy is stronger than before, 
for the heart yearns after its counterpart to meet exter- 
nally as they constantly meet internally. The separated 
spirit lingers in love with all the objects it has lived 
with. Yesterday the sun bathed all the landscape in 
light, and every particle of ground and drop of water 
was fused with its golden magnetism. Was the sym- 
pathy destroyed when the sun went down ? Everything 
turned a face sunward, seeking it, and in the effort to 
get close to it, crowding its fellow forward, there is a 
circuit of the earth round and round. So reciprocal is 
this love, our mother-world is ever blooming and fruit- 
ing with dissolving views of beauty. A lock of hair — 
electric medium for the brain — is not only a remem- 
brancer, but is an affectionate tie, tinged with the linger- 



28 LOOKING BEYOND. 

ing divinity which the departing felt at the first glimpse 
of heaven. This even brings the angel nearer. 

Time and distance cannot separate friends that love. 
The space between is larger room for soul to meet its 
soul in sympathy. The spirit and earth worlds, corre- 
lated as soul with body, are mutually dependent. Can 
the planets revolve and develop forms of life without 
the sun, or the sun perform its functional duty with- 
out the planets? The veil is there between the two 
worlds, and "is getting thinner," exclaims Rev. Nehe- 
miah Adams. Says the Swedish seer, "If angels and 
spirits were to be removed from a man, he would 
instantly fall down like a stock or a stone ; and they, 
on the other hand, could not subsist, if they were 
deprived of their support and resting-place in man- 
kind." 

"In the brain of man," says Professor Draper, " are 
impressions of whatever he has seen or heard, of whatever 
has been made manifest to him by his other senses ; nay, 
even the vestiges of his former thoughts are stored up." 
All true in experience, and as we make the test, we 
discover our mental impressions are immeasurable ; that 
the sensitive plate of the brain has caught its picturings 
from millions of beings, seen and unseen ; that under 
the watch-lights of some heavenly guardian, we can read 
events in the realm of subtile causes, ere they have 
descended into our practical world ; that, as we drift 
out on the ocean, tides of mentality, conscious or uncon- 
scious, wakeful or asleep, our souls, agitated by each 
pulse-wave of life, by dream or vision, or feeling, or 
sign, or hearing, find the "Isle of the Blest," — our 



life's mystic key. 29 

home-land of birth and destiny, where innumerable 
angels meet us in loving fellowship. 

Margaret Fuller Ossoli, the sweet spirit that since 
often visits our sorrowing world, had a presentiment of 
her fate ere she launched upon the stormy ocean from 
Rome to America. K Various omens," she writes, " have 
combined to give me a dark feeling. ... In case of 
mishap, however, I shall perish with my husband and 
child." The waves were their graves. Her prayer was 
fulfilled — "Ossoli, Angelo, and I may go together!" 
Who writes this horoscope? who but an angel can pre- 
monish us of the seeming fatality that lifts us higher ? 
The instances are common with the spiritually illumina- 
ted when the angels visit their " chosen ones," even at 
a time of health, to prepare them for the change, when 
those heavenly visitants are sure to come again and 
take them home. 

The Lockport Journal, N. Y., in 1865, relates what 
a minister said at the funeral of a little boy : w Several 
weeks before his death, while his cheeks were yet ruddy 
and his eyes bright with the lustre of health, he came 
down from his sleeping room in the morning, and told 
his mother he had just seen the most beautiful lady he 
ever saw, and that she was very anxious that he should 
accompany her away to a beautiful land. The little 
boy felt somewhat inclined to listen to the persuasive 
pleadings of the beautiful lady, but finally told her that 
his mother could not spare him, and he must be excused. 
In about three weeks the same vision w T as repeated, only 
with more clearness and beauty. The mother endeav- 
ored to persuade her little boy that he had been dream- 



30 LOOKING BEYOND. 

ing, but he could not believe this, asserting that he 
really saw the beautiful lady, and that her persuasive- 
ness was almost irresistible. In about three weeks the 
* beautiful lady' appeared the third time, and- renewed 
her earnest entreaty for the company of the little boy. 
He used the same child-like argument this tiuie, assert- 
ing that his mother could not spare him. In about 
three days from this latter interview the little boy was 
taken sick, and very soon died." 

A lady in New York had in her family two Irish 
servant girls, who were sisters, very much attached to 
each other. One of them was suddenly taken ill. "A 
few days afterwards, and while suffering under the pros- 
trating effects of her disease, she beckoned her sister to 
her bed, and whispered in her ear, ? Bridget, I am going 
to leave you ; mother and sister Bessie (spirits) have 
just been here, and they told me they were coming 
after me in a few days, and that they would take me 
with them.' She accordingly died within a few days 
from that time." 

Herman Snow, of San Francisco, California, formerly 
a Unitarian clergyman, accompanies a brotherly note 
with the following : — 

"... And now, as I write, comes up in my mem- 
ory the venerable form of my noble father, whose earthly 
home was in Pomfret, Vermont. In his early years he 
was considerably under the influence of the old order of 
religious thought, but being somewhat impressible, and 
otherwise mediumistic, he was one of the earliest of his 
neighborhood to welcome the light of modern spritual- 
ism ; and thus, although even then far advanced in 



life's mystic key. 31 

years, my respected father was not long in emerging 
from the shadows, so that the lingering darkness of a 
confused and irrational theology no longer obscured the 
clearness of his spiritual vision. The firmness with 
which he embraced the new faith was owing largely to 
the fact that a little grandchild, only about seven years 
old, and who had never learned to write, was developed 
into an exellent writing medium, and from day to day 
gave characteristic messages from departed friends, often 
in a very close fac simile of their handwriting. 

"A few years previous to his departure, when at about 
the age of eighty, my father had an attack of an acute 
disease, so severe that, for a time, it seemed to be his 
direct summons to the world beyond. I was absent at 
the time; but on my return, knowing his cheerful way 
of looking at the matter, I said, in a somewhat play- 
ful mood, while conversing with. him upon the subject, 
r Well, father, did you get so that you could see over 
upon the other side ? ' I will give the reply substan- 
tially in his own words. 'No, I did not get so that I 
c#uld see clearly over to that other side ; but I did have 
something quite interesting and peculiar in my expe- 
rience. I was lying awake one night at the time my 
case was considered most doubtful, the door of my room 
being open into the apartment adjoining. I was trying 
to make up my mind whether I had rather go or stay ; 
and I had about concluded that, as I had got to be so 
old, and so many of my friends were already there, I 
had rather go ; when suddenly there came, gliding in 
through the door, a light and shadowy form, whose 
features I could not clearly distinguish. Then came 



32 LOOKING BEYOND. 

another, and another, until some seven or eight had 
entered the room and ranged themselves around my bed. 
They waited for a time, as if in consultation, and then 
went away as they came.' 

" From our subsequent conversation I found that my 
father understood clearly that this was a visitation of 
dear friends who had come with the probable expectation 
of being then permitted to receive him into their spirit- 
arms ; but on a due observation of the case, they saw 
that not then, but a few years later, this pleasant office 
would be theirs. And so they left him for a time, 
whilst, with venerable grace and dignity, he added a 
few closing years to a long and useful career. And so it 
happened. When nearly eighty-three years of age, after 
a long and tedious confinement, during which came other 
cheering intimations of the nearness of that band of 
expectant friends, the still youthful spirit, although lin- 
gering painfully in an old and disabled earthly body, 
finally passed joyfully and triumphantly into the pres- 
ence *of the friends of his early youth." 

All artists are spiritual ; they live most in the ini^r 
world of soul — a world more real than this earth of 
rock and land and water — a world where " there are 
angel faces, and we should see them, if we were calm 
and holy." Our sister reformers — the Motts, the 
Ernestine Roses, the Anna Dickinsons, the Susan An- 
thonys, the Stantons — are all thus gifted and inspired, 
instinctively in love with this angelic religion. Mrs. 
Julia Ward Howe gave the following account of the 
origin of her "Battle Hymn of the Republic" to a 
Detroit audience, a few evenings since : — 



life's mystic key. 33 

W I was on a visit to Washington, during the first 
winter of the late war, with Governor Andrew and 
other Massachusetts friends. We had been spending 
the day in the soldiers' camps on the Potomac, and I 
heard the 'John Brown Hymn' sung and played so 
often that its strains were constantly sounding in my 
ears. As the words in use seemed an inadequate 
expression of the music, I wished very much for an 
inspiration which would provide a fitting rendition of 
so beautiful a theme. But it did not come, and I re- 
tired to bed. 

"Early in the morning, before daybreak, I awoke, 
and my mind, in a half-dreaming state, begun at once to 
run upon the rhyme of the ? John Brown Hymn.' Very 
soon the words commenced fitting themselves to its 
measure, and the lines spun off without further effort. 
I said to myself, f Now I shall lose all this unless I get 
it down in black and white.' I arose, groped about in 
the dark, got such stationary as may be found in the 
room of a Washington hotel, sat down, then wrote, as 
I frequently do, without lighting a lamp, that f Battle 
Hymn of the Republic.'" 

Lydia Maria Child relates the following : — 

! * When Harriet Hosmer, the sculptor, visited her 
native country a few years ago, I had an interview with 
her, during which our conversation happened to turn 
upon dreams and visions. 

? I have had some experience in that way,' said she. 
'Let me tell you a singular circumstance which hap- 
pened to me in Rome. An Italian girl named Rosa 
was in my employ for a long time, but was finally 



b4 * LOOKING BEYOND. 

obliged to return to her mother on account of confirmed 
ill health. We were mutually sorry to part, for we 
liked each other. When I took my customary exercise 
on horseback, I frequently called to see her. On one 
of these occasions I found her brighter than I had seen 
her for some time past. I had long relinquished hopes 
of her recovery, but there was nothing in her appear- 
ance that gave me the impression of immediate danger. 
I left her with the expectation of calling to see her again 
many times. During the remainder of the day I was 
busy in my studio, and I do not recollect that Rosa was 
in my thoughts after I parted from her. I retired to 
rest in good health and in a quiet frame of mind. But 
I woke from a sound sleep with an oppressive feeling 
that some one was in the room. I wondered at the 
sensation, for it was entirely new to me ; but in vain I 
tried to dispel it. I peered beyond the curtain of my 
bed, but could distinguish no objects in the darkness. 
Trying to gather my thoughts, I soon reflected that the 
door was locked, and that I put the key under my bol- 
ster. I felt for it, and found it where I had placed it. 
I said to myself that I had probably had some ugly 
dream, and had waked with a vague impression of it 
still on my mind. Reasoning thus, I arranged myself 
comfortably for another nap. I am habitually a good 
sleeper, and a stranger to fear ; but, do what I would, 
the idea still haunted me that some one was in the room. 
Finding it impossible to sleep, I longed for daylight to 
dawn, that I might rise and pursue my customary avo- 
cation. It was not long before I was able dimly to 
distinguish the furniture in my room, and soon after I 



life's mystic key. 35 

heard familiar noises of servants opening windows and 
doors. An old clock, with ringing vibration, proclaim- 
ing the hour, I counted one, two, three, four, five, and 
resolved to rise immediately. My bed was partially 
screened by a long curtain looped up at one side. As 
I raised my head from the pillow, Rosa looked inside 
the curtain, and smiled at me. The idea of anything 
supernatural did not occur to me. I was simply sur- 
prised, and exclaimed, " Why, Rosa! how came you 
here when you are so ill ? " In the old familiar tone to 
which I was so much accustomed, a voice replied, "I 
am well now." With no other thought than that of 
greeting her joyfully, I sprang out of bed. There w T as 
no Rosa there ! I moved the curtain, thinking she 
might perhaps have playfully hidden herself behind its 
folds. The same feeling induced me to look into the 
closet. The sight of her had come so suddenly, that, 
in the first moment of surprise and bewilderment, I did 
not reflect that the door was locked. When I became 
convinced that there was no one in the room but my- 
self, I recollected that fact, and thought I must have 
seen a vision. At the breakfast-table, I said to the old 
lady with whom I boarded, "Rosa is dead/' " What do 
you mean by that?" she inquired; "you told me she 
seemed better than common when you called to see her 
yesterday." I related the occurrence of the morning, 
and told her I had a strong impression Rosa was dead. 
She laughed, and said I had been dreaming it all. I 
assured her I was thoroughly awake, and in proof 
thereof told her I had heard all the customary house- 
hold noises, and had counted the clock when it struck 



36 LOOKING BEYOND. 

five. She replied, "All that is very possible, my dear. 
The clock struck into your dream. Real sounds often 
mix with the illusions of sleep. I am surprised that a 
dream should make such an impression on a young lady 
so free from superstition as you are." She continued to 
jest on the subject, and slightly annoyed me by her 
persistence in believing it a dream, when I was perfectly 
sure of having been wide awake. To settle the ques- 
tion, I summoned a messenger and sent him to inquire 
how Rosa did. He returned with the answer that she 
died that morning at five o'clock.' " 

The Scranton (Pa.) Republican tells the following 
sad story of one of the victims of the late Pittston dis- 
aster : " William James expired about three o'clock on 
the afternoon of the Tuesday following the catastrophe, 
and was the last added to the list of those upon whom 
the death-angel laid his hand in that awful havoc. He 
was a Welshman, and had been in this country about 
seven months. On the morning of the dreadful day in 
question he had taken his breakfast, and his wife had 
made ready his dinner and set the pail beside him. For 
some time he sat wrapped in thought, his arms folded, 
his eyes fixed vacantly upon the stove, and a deep 
melancholy apparently brooding over him. He was 
aroused from his reverie by his wife telling him that his 
dinner w r as ready, and that he would be late, as the bell 
had rung. He started to his feet, and gazing upon her 
for a moment with a look full of tenderness and signifi- 
cance, said to her, *If 1 should not come back alive 
would you be in such a hurry getting me out ? ' The 
wife answered, ' No,' but remarked that ? if he was going 



life's mystic key. 37 

at all, it was time he was gone.' He lifted his pail 
without saying a word, and after kissing his wife, kissed 
his four little children, who were sitting playing on the 
doorstep. When he had got about fifty yards from his 
home, he returned again, and kissed his wife and chil- 
dren once more with great fervency. His wife noticed 
that he was the victim of gloomy forebodings, and as 
he turned away she was about to entreat him not to go 
to work if he apprehended any danger. But hope and 
courage and the necessities of their family overcame her 
intention, and she let him go. She stood in the door, 
and watched him on his way to the fatal pit. When at 
a point where he turned out of her sight, he paused and 
cast a wistful look towards his home and little ones, and 
seeing his wife, waved with his hand a last adieu." 

Are there not sentinel angels standing on the watch- 
towers of Life intently noticing our steps and perils, 
and warning us by a thousand ways of impending mis- 
fortunes? Were we prompt to obey our "first impres- 
sions," how much of sorrow we might avert ! When 
we are more spiritual, deeper imbued with faith in the 
" divine overshadowing," with obedience to the laws of 
our being, with consecration to spiritual experiences, 
temptations can be resisted and dangers averted. How 
many on sea and land have been rescued from peril by 
spirit impressions ! As an instance among the great 
number may be mentioned that of Judge O. P. Poston, 
a prominent lawyer of Kentucky. After relating re- 
liable tests of spirit-guardianship, he thus speaks of his 
warnings and deliverances from perils during the late 
war : — 



38 LOOKING BEYOND.- 

"In the earlier part of the rebellion, many of my 
friends and myself made an earnest effort to stay the 
progress of secession in Kentucky, and became more or 
less obnoxious to the opposite faction. I always escaped 
capture during the repeated raids made into the State. 
1 was always r warned by dreams ? that were singularly 
vivid, and sometimes repeated the same night of the 
approaching foe, and I left the night previous to the 
arrival of the band. On Christmas morning, 1863, I 
sat at my office table alone, writing notes on business, 
and as I sealed the first letter, a spiritual voice, clear 
and distinct, said to me, f The rebels are about ! ' and, as 
I continued to write, it was repeated four times before I 
took my horse and left for the country. At that time 
the weather was cold, and no rebel forces were in Ken- 
tucky. General Baird was at Danville, ten miles south 
of my locality, with ten thousand Union troops. I 
never felt safer than on that morning ; yet at that time 
General Morgan was eighteen miles west of our town 
with two thousand rebel cavalry. They thus kept invio- 
late their promise made to me in the earlier part of the 
war, and warned me of all approaching danger." 

Love is health ; and love lives by exchange of spheres^ 
This is the law of healing by the laying on of hands. 
So strong is this cord, it can sometimes bring the spirit 
back to live for years in its "clay tenement," even after 
a transit " across the river." What but this that could 
say, with fulfilment in its command, "Lazarus, come 
forth ! " that returned the son of the Shunamite woman ? 
that, by touching the bier, "the dead sat up and began 
to speak " ? . . . " Folded eyes seek brighter colors 
than the open ever do." 



life's mystic key. 39 

"We should see the spirits singing 
Kound thee, were the clouds away ; 

'Tis the child-heart draws them, singing 
In the silent seeming clay, — 

Singing ! Stars that seem the sweetest 
Go in music all the way." 

The instincts of some people, even without philos- 
ophy, have instituted what seems to be* superstitious 
notions, but which are in fact based in spiritual law. 
A touch or a tear, or a yearning affection, may keep 
back the departing spirit. 

"In some parts of Holland, when a child is dying, 
persons shade it by their hands from the parents' gaze ; 
the soul being supposed to linger in the body as long as 
a compassionate eye is fixed upon it. Thus, in Ger- 
many, if he who sheds tears when leaning over an ex- 
piring friend, or bending- over the patient's couch, does 
but wipe them off, he enhances, they say, the difficulty 
of death's last struggle." 

"A few months since," says S. B. Brittan, in his 
admirable work, entitled *Man and his Relations,' "an 
eminent Presbyterian divine, in New York, was borne 
by disease to the very portals of the invisible world. 
He had a distinct consciousness of his condition. Veiled 
in light, his spirit rose and hovered over the body. He 
could distinctly see the wasted form, stretched on the 
couch beneath him, pale, pulseless, and cold, but his 
immortal self was thrilled with inexpressible peace and 
joy. Just then his wife, to whom he was tenderly and 
strongly attached, called to him, with the deep earnest- 
ness of that undying love which can endure all things 
but separation from the object of its devotion. The 



40 LOOKING BEYOND. 

potent magnetism of that loving heart counterpoised 
the combined attractions of the spheres, and even re- 
called the unshackled spirit from the heavens just 
opening to receive it. He returned to the body. The 
next moment a gentle voice — calling his name in 
mingled tenderness and grief — vibrated on the out- 
ward ear, reminding him that he was still a dweller in 
the earth." 

The Memphis Whig publishes the facts of a case in 
point. While the wife was bending over the apparently- 
lifeless form of her husband, " she bathed the brow with 
her scalding tears, and fervently kissed the frigid lips. 
In this great struggle love triumphed over death. . . . 
That man recovered, and with his wife soon left Mem- 
phis, inspired with the new energy of returning health, 
and emotions of grateful reverence towards the Being 
in whose hand are the issues of life." 

About ten years since, Miss Kate Marshall, of Hing- 
ham, Wis., with other girls, one evening went in bath- 
ing into a pond near the village. It being quite dark, 
she ventured beyond her depth and sank to the bottom. 
The alarm was given amid screams and cries, when 
Edward Hobart, hearing the news, rushed from his 
home, dashed into the water, and by sense of feeling 
found the body and brought it to the shore, then appar- 
ently dead. By rolling the body, pressing the lungs, 
breathing into the nostrils, rubbing upwards, and other 
expedients, she was resuscitated. Afterwards relating 
her sensations, she said "she was so happy then ; that 
she saw her body distinctly down in the water, and had 
no desire to be returned into that prison, as it appeared. 



life's mystic key. 41 

She was with the angels, and dreaded the effort to find 
the spot where lay the pale casket. She instinctively 
tried to baffle the searchers, but the moment her body 
was touched by Mr. Hobart her spiritual consciousness 
was lost amid the most excruciating agonies, as her 
spirit struggled to get possession again of its former 
residence." 

What to us is death, is emancipation to the spirits. 
Their return to their bodies, as in trance conditions, is 
really like the death so many dread. This is the gene- 
ral testimony of trance mediums. When once amid 
the beauties and serenities of the "better world," the 
thought even that they must return produces a chill. 
K O, that we could stay ! " is their universal exclamation. 
This is the experience of Dr. E. C. Dunn, and other 
trance mediums. 

Hudson Tuttle, in his "Arcana of Nature," gives an 
incident of his own clairvoyant experience. "I appar- 
ently," he says, w left the body, and in company with my 
guardian, went to- the spirit-world. I knew I must 
return. I came to my body. I saw it cold and mo- 
tionless, rigid in every muscle and fibre. I endeavored 
to regain possession of it several times, yet could not, 
and became so alarmed that 1 could not even make the 
effort ; and it was only by and through the influence of 
the friends who were present that I succeeded at all. 
When at length I did recover my mortal garb, the 
anguish, the pain, the agony of that moment was in- 
describable. It was like that which is used to describe 
death, or which drowned men tell us of when they at 
length recover." 



42 LOOKING BEYOND. 

Professor Helrnholtz announces, as the result of some 
recent experiments made by M. Baxt, that the excita- 
tion of the motor nerves is greater in summer than in 
winter. As death is a cooling process of the body by 
the withdrawal of the spirit, the " manifestation " of the 
clairvoyance or churaudience of the departing, will be 
more or less dim and feeble, just in proportion to the 
frigidity of the body. It can be readily seen how diffi- 
cult it is for a spirit to return to its body, that is, in the 
trance or cataleptic condition, and the solemn duty on 
our part to be cautious and patient lest we be guilty of 
murdering the innocent by a premature burial. Where 
the "silver cord" is not severed, as in a trance, it is im- 
possible to prevent the return of the spirit. The dis- 
covery of its peril creates the very condition that drives 
it back ; and then the agony is terrible, unless we who 
survive understand our business, and endeavor to aid the 
frightened friend by gentle manipulations and tender, 
long-suffering sympathies. 

The great utility of cultivating mediumship is illus- 
trated in the case of a mother and child in Canada, 
showing also the culpability of hasty burials. Mariette 
Westover was then six or eight years old. The child 
sickened, and the witnesses said "died," and declared 
K she must be buried." A spirit was able to impress the 
mother that her child was not dead. She battled against 
the asseverations and importunities of the friends, keep- 
ing the little body five days, when lo ! the child-spirit 
returned, to the supreme joy of all. 

w On the exhumation of the Cimetiere des Innocents 
at Paris, during the Napoleon dynasty, the skeletons 



life's mystic key. 43 

were, many of them, discovered in attitudes struggling 
to get free ; indeed some, we are assured, were partly out 
of their coffins- So noted was this matter in Germany, 
as to give rise to a custom of placing a bell-rope in the 
hand of a corpse for twenty-four hours before burial. 

"Miss C. and her brother were the subjects of typhoid 
fever. She seeuied to die, and her bier was placed in 
the family vault. In a week her brother died also, and 
when he was taken to the tomb, the lady was found 
sitting in her grave-clothes, on the steps of the vault, 
having, after her waking from the trance, died of terror 
or exhaustion. 

"A girl, after repeated faintings, was apparently 
dead, and* taken as a subject into a dissecting-room 
in Paris. During the night, faint groans were heard in 
the room ; but no search was made. In the morning it 
was apparent that the girl had attempted to disengage 
herself from the winding-sheet, one leg being thrust 
off from the trestles, and an arm resting on an adjoin- 
ing table. 

" The emperor Zeno was prematurely buried ; and 
when the body was soon after casually discovered, it 
was found that he had, to satisfy acute hunger, eaten 
some flesh from off his arm. 

"A romantic story is told of a young French lady at 
Paris, bound to a hated marriage, while her heart was 
devoted to another. She fell into a trance, and was 
buried. Under some strange influence'her lover opened 
her grave, and she was revived and married. Dendy 
tells a story of another strange lady, who was actually 
the subject of an anatomist. On the existence of some 



44 LOOKING BEYOND. 

faint signs of vitality, he not only restored the lady to 
life, but united himself to her in marriage. 

"Bourgeois tells that a medical man, in 1838, from 
the sudden influence of grief upon the organic system, 
sunk into a cataleptic state, but his consciousness never 
left him. The lamentations of his wife, the condolence 
of friends, and the arrangements regarding his funeral, 
were all distinctly heard. Perfectly aware of all that 
was going on around him, he was placed in the coffin, 
and carried in solemn procession to the grave. As the 
solemn words, * earth to earth,' were uttered, and the 
first clod fell upon his coffin lid, so sudden an influence 
was produced upon his organic system by terror as to 
neutralize the effect of grief — he shrieked aloud, and 
was saved." 

Through the agency of a society instituted in Am- 
sterdam, in 1767, to resuscitate drowned persons, one 
hundred and fifty, in a brief period, were rescued. 
Similar societies have been formed in Milan, Hamburg, 
Venice, Paris, London, Glasgow, and should be in all 
the principal cities in the world. Dr. George Watter- 
son, in Sartain's Magazine, cites to ninety-four cases 
of premature burials in France prevented by fortuitous 
circumstances. One of the first objects of such asso- 
ciations should be to inquire into the secret laws of 
spirit and life, and the causes of suspended animation. 
The sepulture of the living is horrible. Indifference 
here is an "unpardonable sin." Where so many these 
times are subject to trances, we cannot be too vigilant. 
Ere the body is buried, we should be sure it is dead. 
The almost universal practice of burying the so-called 



life's mystic key. 45 

dead within three days, is reckless and unpardonable. 
The time required for the spirit to extract from its body 
all that belongs to it, varies according to constitutional 
compactness, or the closeness of relation between the 
inhabitant and its house. It may be in one, two, three, 
or five, or more days. It is longer when the spirit is 
forced out by accident, more especially so at times of 
vigorous health. An intelligent German girl, living 
in 1869 near Burlington, Wis., having had a severe 
attach of the measles, had a warning of her departing, 
and told her father not to "hurry in her burial." Her 
body remained in a warm room, lifeless to appearance, 
but undecayed, for three weeks, ere decomposition would 
warrant interment. It cannot be too earnestly repeated, 
Cultivate mediumship, to know when the spirit has 
fully departed from its earthly house. The nature 
of the disease and the age of the person should be con- 
sidered. Symptoms of decomposition are safe criterion. 
Some one says that iron or steel in a living body will 
oxidize ; in a dead body will not. Sudden draughts of 
fresh air have been known to revive the body; also, 
raising it from its recumbent position, and frequent and 
spasmodic charges of electricity. 



THE NEW BIRTH. 

"Go, give to the waters and to the plants thy body which belongs 
to them: but there is an immortal portion; O Djatavedas, transport 
it to the world of the holy "—Big Veda. 

IS there not a balm in Gilead ? Is there not a physi- 
cian there?" The dark side of life is the bright 
side. Every night has a star of Bethlehem. There is 
a sweet oasis for every weary pilgrim ; a Bethesda in 
every bereft heart ; an angel in every sorrowing home ; 
night for the dews ; clouds for the rainbow ; winter for 
the beautiful snow ; frost for the outbursting of buds 
into trees and flowers ; pains of body for birth of soul ; 
earthly loss for eternal gain ; sickness for calmer con- 
verse with heaven ; bereavement for ascension to holier 
life. Then let us wing the hours with immortal hope. 

By a delicate experiment, it is ascertained that sensa- 
tions are transmitted to the brain with a rapidity of 
about one hundred and eighty feet per second, or at 
one fifth the rate of sound. The brain requires one 
tenth of a second to transmit its orders to the nerves 
which preside over voluntary motion. To transmit an 
order by the motor nerves to the muscles till they act, 
requires two tenths of a second. If, then, the nerves 
are decayed, or clogged by bad habits, or inflamed as in 
brain fevers, the communication between the inner and 
outer life, or capacity to manifest what the spirit is 

46 



THE NEW BIRTft. 47 

cognizant of, is of course intercepted ; so that the spir- 
itual vision or hearing by the natural senses will be 
mixed or indefinite. Hence the vague and wandering 
ideas some have in their last hours. They indicate the 
struggle of the spirit, however ; and were the obstruc- 
tions removed, or the nervous channels open, we who 
remain would behold positive revealment of immortality. 
One's habits very much modify spiritual identity. " Tem- 
perance in all things " is a " passport over." Though we 
come into this world crying, we should go out of it 
rejoicing. 

There are floods and ebbs in our tides of being. The 
transit-hours are the most imminent. " The least mor- 
tality," says a writer in the Quarterly Review, "is during 
the midday hours, namely, from ten to three o'clock ; 
the greatest during the early morning hours, from three 
to six o'clock. . . . The hour after midnight is the 
lowest maximum." 

Does the measure of human life depend on physical 
strength? As often do the frailer remain, while the 
vigorous suddenly pass on. By strict obedience to the 
spiritual laws of mediumship the dial of our life may 
turn back even ten degrees. Disdaining green fruit in 
their paradises, transported from earth-lands, the angels 
are patient for the "ripening," and demand of us patient 
labor and waitino; till we have earned the ri^ht to the 
"Eden above." Many a spiritually-minded man and 
woman has felt the springs of rejuvenated health from 
the ministering angels, to endure yet longer for the good 
we do. 

There is an unerring ratio between the growth of the 



48 LO&KING BEYOND. 

physical and celestial bodies. If the one is slow to 
maturity, so is the other. Some trees develop sooner 
than others. So of plants, so of animals, so of human- 
ities. The life of some is short because the spirit is 
swift in unfolding. Mourn not because the golden tulip 
comes and goes so early, while "the last rose of sum- 
mer" is late in the season. Soonest in blossom is soon- 
est in fruit. 

The analogy which Mrs. E. O. G. Willard, in her 
science of " Sexology," traces between the two births, 
is finely drawn : — 

:t When the soul has obtained its centralization and its 
spiritual organization under the cover and protection of 
its physical garments, then, by shaking off these gar- 
ments, it emerges from its chrysalis state as free in 
space as the planet on which it had its birth. ... As 
the physical birth of the fetus is death to its uterine 
envelope, so a spiritual birth is death to its physical 
casket, the body ; or, as the destruction of the uterine 
casket in which the child is developed implies the birth 
of the physical system, so the destruction or death of 
the physical body implies the birth of its spiritual sys- 
tem. As the destruction of the uterine casket does not 
destroy the physical form that it has helped produce, 
so by analogy the death of the human casket cannot 
destroy the spiritual form that it has helped to develop. 
As the physical birth of the child does not destroy the 
transmitted parental impression upon its features, much 
less should a spiritual birth destroy the impressions it 
has received through the senses of its physical parent, 
the body, inasmuch as the soul is incomparably finer in 



THE NEW BIRTH. 49 

its texture, and must therefore be much more tenacious 
of impressions than the body." 

In his w Death and After Life," depicturing scenes 
and occupations in the "Summer Land," A. J. Davis, 
basing his conclusions upon spiritual observation, thus 
describes the process of transition : — 

M Suppose a human being lying in the death-bed be- 
fore you. Persons present not seeing anything of the 
beautiful processes of the interior, are grief-stricken and 
weeping. This departing one is a beloved member of 
the family. But there, in the corner of the room 
of sorrow, stands one who sees through the outward 
phenomena presented by the dying one, and what do 
you suppose is visible? To the outward senses the 
feet are there, the head on the pillow, and the hands 
clasped, outstretched, or crossed over the breast. If 
the person is dying under or upon cotton, there are 
signs of agony, the head and body changing from side 
to side. Never allow any soul to pass out of the phys- 
ical body through the agony of cotton or feathers, either 
beneath or in folds about the sufferer. 

fr Suppose the person is now dying. It is to be a 
rapid death. The feet first grow cold. The clairvoy- 
ant sees right over the head what may be called a 
magnetic halo — an ethereal emanation, in appearance 
golden, and throbbing as though conscious. The body 
is now cold up to the knees and elbows, and the ema- 
nation has ascended higher in the air. The legs are 
cold to the hips, and the arms to the shoulders, and the 
emanation, although it has not arisen higher in the 
room, is more expanded. The death-coldness steals 
4 



50 LOOKING BEYOND, 

over the breast, and around on either side, and the 
emanation has attained a higher position nearer the 
ceiling. The person has ceased to breathe, the pulse is 
still, and the emanation is elongated and fashioned in 
the outline of the human form ! Beneath it is con- 
nected the brain. The head of the person is internally 
throbbing — a slow, deep throb — not painful, but like 
the beat of the sea. Hence the thinking faculties are 
rational while nearly every part of the person is dead ! 
Owing to the brain's momentum, I have seen a dying 
person, even at the last feeble pulse-beat, rouse impul- 
sively and rise up in bed to converse with a friend, but 
the next instant he was gone — his brain being the last 
to yield up the life-principles. 

"The golden emanation, which extends up midway to 
the ceiling, is connected with the brain by a very fine 
life-thread. Now the body of the emanation ascends. 
Then appears something white and shining, like a hu- 
man head ; next, in a very few moments, a faint outline 
of the face divine ; then the fair neck and beautiful 
shoulders; then, in rapid succession, come all parts 
of the new body down to the feet — a bright, shining 
image, a little smaller than this physical body, but a 
perfect prototype or reproduction in all except its dis- 
figurements. The fine life-thread continues attached to 
the old brain. The next thing is the withdrawal of the 
electric principle. When this thread snaps, the spiritual 
body is free, and prepared to accompany its guardians 
to the Summer-land. Yes, there is a spiritual body; it 
is sown in dishonor and raised in brightness. . . . 

"At the battle of Fort Donelson, I saw a soldier 



THE NEW BIRTH. 51 

instantly killed by a cannon ball. One arm was thrown 
over the high trees ; a part of his brain went a great 
distance ; other fragments were scattered about in the 
open field ; his limbs and fingers flew among the dead 
and dying. Now what of this man's spiritual body? 
I have seen similar things many times — not deaths by 
cannon balls, but analogous deaths by sudden accidents 
or explosions. Of this person whose body was so 
utterly annihilated at Fort Donelson, I saw that all the 
particles streamed up and met together in the air. The 
atmosphere was filled with those golden particles — 
emanations from the dead — over the whole battle-field. 
About three quarters of a mile above the smoke of the 
battle-field — above all the f clouds that lowered ' upon 
the hills and forests of black discord, there was visible 
the beautiful accumulation from the fingers and toes and 
heart and brain of that suddenly killed soldier. There 
stood the new spiritual body three quarters of a mile 
above all the discord and din and havoc of the furious 
battle ! And the spiritual bodies of many others were 
coming up from other directions at the same time ; so 
that from half a mile to three and five miles, in the clear, 
tranquil air, I could see spiritual organisms forming and 
departing thence in all directions." 

J. W. Seaver, of Byron, N. Y., in a letter of July, 
1871, substantiates the statements of other media re- 
specting the transition from the w shell " to the priestly 
robe of an angel : — 

"Some ten or twelve years since, at Byron, N. Y., 
our beautiful sister, Miss Jane Dodge, aged about six- 
teen, after a painful illness by consumption, was brought 



52 LOOKING BEYOND. 

to the trying hour, when the realities of this transition 
must be met. It was in the spring-time of the year, 
when the atmosphere was perfumed by the sweet breath 
of flowers, on an early Sabbath morning, when the 
friends of the family were called to witness the approach- 
ing dissolution. Among others in attendance were my 
wife and Mrs. Belfy, and her young daughter Henrietta, 
who was seven or eight years old. From the time 
when Jane was first c struck with death,' as the saying 
is, until the last evidences of animation were given by 
her body, some three hours or more had passed, near the 
close of which, completing the new birth of her spirit, 
Henrietta requested the attention of my wife aside ; 
and when they were withdrawn to a remote part of the 
room, or to an adjoining bedroom, she informed her 
that she could see the spirit of Jane just rising and form- 
ing above her head, as she lay upon her dying couch." 

Henrietta had for some time ,past given evidence of 
possessing mediumistic gifts. That she would, at such 
a solemn hour, in the presence of death (which usually 
is so terrible to children), attempt to practise decep- 
tion upon a lady of mature years, is entirely beyond the 
region of probability ; besides, she could have known 
nothing about the philosophy of death. 

Mary Carpenter, in a letter addressed to Joseph 
Baker, of Janesville, Wis., thus describes the transi- 
tion of her mother, January 28, 1852 : — 

"Her last words were addressed to me. Perceiving 
that she was dying, I seated myself in the room, and 
was- soon in the state of spiritual clairvoyance. With 
the opening of the inner sight, the painful scene of a 



THE NEW BIRTH. 53 

mother's death was changed to a vision of glory. Beau- 
tiful angelic spirits were present, watching over her ; 
their faces were radiant with bliss, and their glittering 
robes were like transparent snow. I could feel them as 
material, and yet they communicated a sensation that I 
can only describe by saying, it seemed like compressed 
air. Some of these heavenly attendants stood at her 
head, and some at her feet, while others seemed to be 
hovering over her form. They did not appear with the 
wings of fowls, as angels are commonly painted, but 
they were in the perfected human form. They seemed 
so pure, so full of love, that it was sweet to look at 
them as they watched the change now taking place in 
my mother. 

"I now turned my attention more directly to my 
parent, and saw the external senses leave her. First 
the power of sight departed, and then a veil seemed to 
drop over the eyes ; then the hearing ceased, and next 
the sense of feeling. The spirit began to leave the 
limbs, as they died first, and the light that filled each 
part in every fibre drew up towards the chest. As fast 
as this took place the veil seemed to drop over the part 
from whence spiritual light was removed. A ball of 
light was now gathering just above her head, and this 
continued to increase as long as the spirit was connected 
with the body. The light left the brain last, and then 
'the silver cord was loosed/* The luminous appear- 

* Professor SchifF, experimenting upon nerve actions by means 
of thermo-electric needles, discovered that the life of the brain does 
not cease immediately after the cessation of the circulation ; that 
the elevation of the sensory nerves could be produced for twelve 
minutes after the entire cessation of the beating of the heart. 



54 LOOKING BEYOND. 

ance soon began to assume the human form, and 1 could 
see, my mother again. But, O, how changed ! She 
was light and glorious, arrayed in robes of dazzling 
whiteness ; free from disease, pain, and death. She 
seemed to be welcomed by the attending spirits with the 
joy of a mother over the birth of a child. She paid 
no attention to me or any earthly object, but joined her 
companions, and they seemed to go away through the 
air. I attempted to follow them in the spirit, for I felt 
strongly attracted, and longed to go with my mother. 
I saw them ascend till they seemed to pass through an 
open space, when a mist came over my sight, and I saw 
them no more. I returned, and soon awoke, but not to 
sorrow as those who *have no hope.' 

"This vision, far more beautiful than language can 
express, remains stamped upon my memory. It is an 
unfailing comfort to me in my bereavement. Her 
death was a great loss to me, but I cannot lament it. 
O, it is a glorious change to her ! " 

Thomas L. Harris, in the Spiritual Telegraph, de- 
scribes the beautiful transition of his wife to the realm 
of spirits : — 

"On Tuesday evening, at about six o'clock, the spirits 
of her relatives, in company with other spirits, to the 
number of about thirty, entered the room, and while 
she was apparently asleep, formed a circle around the 
bed. I was placed at this time, by their influence, in a 
deep interior condition, retaining, however, full posses- 
sion of all the external faculties and powers. From the 
moment this circle of spirits was formed she became free 
from all pain. 



THE NEW BIRTH. 55 

" We watched the ebbing life of the external form till 
about a quarter before twelve (midnight) . Gradually 
we felt the pulse sinking to rest. At that time a sud- 
den light, like a diffused silver radiation, came and 
rested upon her face. A wondrous smile played upon 
her countenance. Such divine love, such ineffable peace 
diffused itself, melting into light in the air around her, 
that she seemed transfigured, and changing into an angel 
before our sight. 

w As her eyes began to close, kneeling by her side, I 
inclined my face to the pillow by her cheek, and laid 
my arm over her form. Heavenly bliss filled all the 
internals of my mind, and I passed at once into rapport 
with her spirit. Gradually I felt her spirit-form arising 
from the external. As it arose my own arms were lifted 
by it. I saw a vortex, or spiral of white light, narrow- 
ing to the diameter of about two feet, just above her 
body, and opening above it into the Spiritual World. 
In this vortex were innumerable angelic forms, and as 
she entered the spiral, they lifted her from my arms. 
She disappeared in that transcendent light." 

The Telegraph adds, "The spirit had departed, and 
only the form — still beautiful in its decay — remained 
to gaze upon. Refusing the repose which protracted 
wakefulness and physical exhaustion had rendered ne- 
cessary, the watcher still continued his vigil through the 
long night, and morning found him by the remains of 
his beloved Mary. When it was light her spirit came 
to him, and while her form was distinctly visible, she 
gave him a communication, closing with these words : 
Mary's dear love to all. Never more be afraid to 

DIE." 



56 LOOKING BEYOND. 

William W. Barrett, and wife Addie, then residing 
in Anoka, Minn., were called to assist the transition 
of a little son of Jay Fuller, some time in the summer 
of 1869. The scene occurred at the residence of Mrs. 
Lepper; who, being in the clairvoyant state, saw the 
" silver cord " flickering forth from its panting body 
attached to the beautiful little spirit. As these friends 
pathetized the child, the cord would seem to roll up 
and recoil, then come out again. Mrs. L. saw it at 
length attenuate at its attachment, finer and finer, till 
every sparkle of light had gone ; and then the attendant 
matron-angel embosomed the dear one for their loving 
nursery amid fadeless flowers. 

Let us not infer from such perception of celestial 
bodies, when passing from the old to the new, that there 
is an unmaking or dissolving process, as if the spiritual 
were at first disintegrated. Structural disorganization 
never precedes birth in any department of nature. 
When the grain, or the bird, or the animal is devel- 
oped, it comes forth organized in perfect shape. Nature 
never retrogrades. A spirit is a wholeness, having an 
organized personality, facsimile of its earthly house, 
but far more beautiful. As its capacities show, it can 
step out of its present body, as in trances and appari- 
tions, before it takes a final leave ; and certainly death 
can have no power to dissolve it for a reconstruction, 
when its only office is to set the spirit free. The acorn 
drops from the burr, the apple from its parent tree, the 
child from its mother's womb ; so the spirit casts off its 
garment and puts on the " white vesture ; " gathers up 
from its former house all the essences of life it can 



THE NEW BIRTH. 57 

appropriate and from the spiritual atmospheres, till it — 
the spirit as such — is clothed with a body once terres- 
trial but now celestial. If the intelligence of the de- 
parted is active at the time, the process is more easy in 
drawing up the robes of spiritual life ; if inactive on 
account of weakness, ignorance, or insensibility, spirit 
friends tender their assistance, taking off earth's robes 
as a mother would a child's on going to rest. This 
undressing and thence redressing in the vestments of 
the spiritual, is as beautiful as that of the chrysalis that 
drops its shell and comes forth in the gaudy plumage of 
the butterfly. 

Nor should we infer from appearances that the strug- 
gles of the departing are always agonies. No doubt a 
natural death, when we have lived out our allotted time 
with faithfulness, is serene as the ascent of fragrance 
from the flowers ; easy, as Mr. Dorsey said of Henry 
C. Wright's departure, " as a child falls to sleep upon 
its mother's breast ; " but when there is a premature 
departure, as by accident or pestilence, there must 
necessarily be a conflict. But it m ay not even then 
be painful. When a spirit takes possession of a me- 
dium, there is, generally, at first, — ere the medium 
becomes accustomed to the influence, — a contortion of 
the muscles ; but the sensation is far from agony ; it 
frequently is most pleasurable. Death is a similar 
operation, only a reversing of the action under the same 
clause. Whilst the body is struggling, the spirit may 
be rejoicing. Are not the fledglings and the parent 
tu'rds so happy when the shells are broken? It is 
birthday in the nest ! There is singing — not crying. 



58 LOOKING BEYOND, 

Dr. Dewey grows rapturous over it : " Hour of release 
from life's burden — hour of reunion with the loved and 
lost ! . . . What longings, what aspirations, bathed in 
the still night beneath the silent stars ! " 

Grace Munson was about eleven years old. When 
her body was in apparent intense agony, her spirit, un- 
conscious of this external life, was engaged in play with 
angel children, often speaking of and to " Josie," her 
cousin who had passed before her. Seeing a spiritual 
house building, she said at the rising sun, "Now I am 
at home ! " and to her home she glided. 

A departing believer was asked, in the midst of con- 
vulsions, "Are you in pain?" and the reply, almost 
with the last breath, was, "It is delightful ! " 

Dr. Cullen, when departing, is said faintly to articu- 
late; to one of his friends, " I wish I had the power of 
writing or speaking, for I would describe to you how 
pleasant a thing it is to die." 

Keats, a little before he passed over, when his friend 
asked him how he did, replied in a low voice, " Better, 
my friend. I feel the daisies growing over me." 

Schiller, when ready to go, was asked how he felt. 
" Calmer and calmer," he replied. 

"It will be a wedding rather than a funeral" said 
Edward Haynes, of Dorchester, Mass. Then hearing 
spirit music, with a smile he glided "out on the sea of 
eternity." V A. deep content — *-a sublime pleasure — 
all is ivell" said "Father Henshaw," the Quaker Spir- 
itualist. "The passage is Jbright as sunshine!" said 
Helen Barton. "Wife, I shall be with you in a few 
moments ! " said Oliver Peabody, of Lunenburg, Mass., 



THE NEW BIRTH. 59 

just as he caught a glimpse of his companion awaiting 
his arrival " beyond the flood." 

" Let us go up there, mamma," said little Ida Graves, 
only six years of age, when sickness was preparing 
her for the journey. "Go where?" asked her pensive 
mother. "Why, up there," reaching up her hands with 
ecstasy. Ida saw the white robed angels, and such 
beauty ! 

Laura de Force Gordon says of Mrs. Mary Leroy, 
Golden City, Colorado, who departed April 29, 1867 : 
:? When suffocating for breath, she whispered, f O, I 
am the happiest being in the world ! My body suffers 
but my spirit is at peace.'" 

Laura Cuppy, speaking of Olive C. Blowers, of 
Woodland, Colorado, says, "Her last moments were 
illuminated by spiritual light ; her last words were, 
*How beautiful!' and, holding her husband's hands, 
she passed from death to life without a struggle." 

Up among the back hills of Maine, writes A. E. 
Frye, lived a poor family ; the parents were addicted to 
drink. The oldest son suddenly died. The younger 
brother was so sad ; but he seemed to catch a new light 
somewhere, and he went to work, and earned the title 
of " Little Basket Maker." Some angel told him he 
would soon be "sick and go to heaven." He told Mrs. 
K. (the kind farmer's wife who adopted him) about "dy- 
ing; " and when the sad hour came, he said, "Brother 
Joseph is here ! " So the " Little Basket Maker " clasped 
hands with his spirit brother, with a soul so beautiful, 
so happy ! 

If death is such a joy, as so many witnesses aver, it 



60 LOOKING BEYOND. 

becomes us who remain not to lessen it by mismanage- 
ment. It has been ascertained, by experiment, that 
changing the " battery " from one room to another may 
neutralize the "manifestations." If the germ of the 
welcome child is jarred in its "holy of holies," it is 
more or less injured. The process of the "new birth" 
is more delicate still. Sad looks, groans, sighs, wring- 
ing of hands, and loud moanings agitate the soul, retard 
its emancipation, and cloud the spiritual vision. How 
can the dear departing see angels under such smothering 
sorrow, or hear their sweet voices amid so unpardonable 
confusion ? 

The room for the loved one should be sacred to neat- 
ness, order, purity, and stillness. The bed or couch 
should also be specially prepared for the auspicious 
event. It is birthday ! If cotton or feathers to lie on 
are not fit for the living, they surely are not fof* the 
"dying," so called. They invariably smother the spirit 
as well as body. Be calm. The place is holy ! An- 
gels are there ! Bend low and tenderly for that loving 
" good by ; " then stand a little distance away from the 
parting friend, unless a nearer position will relieve suf- 
fering or aid the sublime process. Let the kiss be elec- 
tric with hopeful love. Give words of cheer ; invoke 
divine benedictions ; suppress loud sobbing ; though 
tears fall, hold the heart-springs with a firm trust in 
God ; look up to see the new-born pilgrim of eternal 
years ; sing inspiring songs about the blessedness of the 
life to come. Our spiritual songstress, Emma Tuttle, 
tells us what to sing then : — ■ 



THE NEW BIRTH. 61 

" O, let no sobs of woe bewail me when I die, 
But sing to me, and let me rise exulting to the sky; 
Mark not the damp of death which gathers on my face, 
But sing in joyful melodies of God's sustaining grace. 

" Mark not the fading eye, nor yet the lines of pain, 
But sing of those immortal shores where I shall live again; 
Sing of the shining ones who passed death's gate like me, 
And triumphed o'er the lonely grave, immortalized and free. 

" Like music low and faint my soul shall float afar, 
And wake in heaven, delightful heaven ! where God's sweet 

singers are. 
O, not with burning tears of those who love me best, 
But with the ecstasy of song folding still hands in rest." 

Feel now the pressure of the hand that seals the un- 
dying soul to its own ; hear the whispered " adieu " that 
blends with the angels' welcome ; see the heavenly smile 
chiselled on the fleshly marbled face, playing there at 
evening sunlight. Blessed calm ! 

"How many to-day," says Emma Hardinge, "pass 
from the earth with smiling faces, because their dying 
eyes are gazing into the bright and beautiful land, and 
so there is no tear, no sigh, no evidence of grief upon 
the face of the dying. Is it not because they perceive 
the presence of the spirits, and know that there is no 
death, that there is no separation? that in that better 
life the chain of affection and love is not broken? They 
perceive that there is no bereavement to the spirit ; it is 
only for us, whilst we remain here. Whilst we are 
here we feel sorrow and anguish. But we should 
remember that the love that binds man to man — that 
divine element that God has written in the human heart 
— is immortal." 



62 LOOKING BEYOND. 

" There is in love 
A consecrated power, that seems to wake 
Only at the touch of death from its repose, 
In the profoundest depths of thinking souls, 
Superior to the outward signs of grief, 
Sighing or tears. When these have passed away, 
It rises calm and beautiful, like the moon, 
Saddening the solemn night, yet with that sadness 
Mingling the breath of undisturbed peace." 

This soul-love, sometimes without our volition, can 
bring back our beloved to its shattered tenement, just a 
moment, to speak to us from the "other side," in the 
assurance of immortality. The transition is gradual ; 
even after respiration has ceased, and every function 
stopped at the fountain, the spirit m^y for days and 
weeks retain some connection with the body. A touch 
even may chain the departed, moving again the machin- 
ery in this earth-life factory that weaves garments for 
the spirit, when lo ! the Christ of the resurrection ! If 
the "silver cord" is not broken, and there is any health 
left on which to build, love with faith may restore the 
dying one, when it descends from the ministering angel 
of God. 

About sixteen years ago, Mrs. Ellis, of Genesee, 
Wis., lay upon her couch in a dying condition. Hands 
and feet were cold as ice ; the nails of the fingers had 
turned purple, the neighbors and relatives had gathered 
to witness her departure. When standing there, deeply 
touched with sympathy, Mrs. B., wife of B. P. Bal- 
com, Esq. (a brother of Mrs. Ellis), was most power- 
fully influenced by a spirit. It burst like a sunbeam 
from a dark cloud ; she stretched forth her hands, and 



' THE NEW BIRTH. 63 

cried, "O Christ, come and heal this woman!" Mr. 
Balcom was also charged with healing power, and 
touched his sister with the same commanding will. 
The dying woman heard and felt ; the electric soul of 
heaven itself descended into the chilled fountains of life ; 
she exclaimed, " He's come ! he's come ! " and imme- 
diately rose up 9 stood upi>n her feet, took a bath, was 
dressed, and in half an hour walked forth into the yard 
filled with the astonished people, supported arm in arm 
by her brother and sister. " O, how beautiful ! " she 
shouted ; " all things are in a blaze of divine glory ! " 
She recovered, and is now an aged mother, almost ripe 
for the "coming harvest." 

The following is from the pen of J. M. Peebles, con- 
taining an extract from a letter addressed to him by 
Mrs. Baily, wife of the deceased. Whilst it shows, as 
in other instances, that a loving hand may hold back the 
receding spirit, even when its form is tenantless, it opens 
to view the joy or good man has when his spiritual 
vision is opened : — 

"A Universalist clergyman, Rev. J. W. Baily, of 
Lima, N. Y., I knew long and well; in fact, we had 
prayed and preached side by side many a time in years 
agone ; but he had passed on — and Mrs. Baily, his 
wife, wrote me, giving me an account of his last hours. 

"The day before he passed he began to sing, and 
would sing for hours. Mrs. Baily asked him, ? Does it 
not tire you to sing so much ? ' * O, yes,' said he ; f but 
I'm so happy — happy, I can't help it.' He then turned 
his eyes to his daughter Emma, and said, ? Do not weep 
for your father, dear child, for he is going so happy, — 



64 LOOKING BEYOND. 

going home. One by one we pass away ; pass to meet 
in the Father's mansion.' 

"She says he then turned his eyes upward, and O, 
how glorious they looked ! They seemed illumined with 
heavenly light ; but he stopped breathing. I laid my 
hand upon his shoulder. He opened his eyes, and smiled 
on me, and said, ? Why, I thought I had gone to the 
spirit world. I have seen over the river, and I can now 
see on both sides. It is beautiful on this side; but O, 
glorious, glorious on the other ! Why, I see Ellen ! 
I see so many friends there, over the river, and they 
beckon, beckon to me. I see more, vastly more on that 
side than I do on this.' Mrs. Baily adds, 'Pie then 
pressed my hand, said "do not grieve," smiled, waved 
his hand, and passed on.'" 

S. W. Jewett, writing from California, March 10, 
1871, relates this incident : — 

" It is eighteen years since myself and Mary K. Jew- 
ett were attending, as ? watchers,' at Wey bridge, Vt., 
in the sick chamber of Henry W. Hagar. About eleven 
o'clock at night his spirit seemed to have taken its flight. 
Dea. Elijah G. Drake and wife were also present. . The 
Hon. Edwin Hay ward was called in to assist. Henry 
was pronounced ? dead ' by his wife, children, mother, 
and all present. I tried to console them by saying c he 
still lives.' The body was silent and motionless for one 
half hour. Myself and wife remained beside the corpse ; 
we discovered a slight motion of the lips, and called the 
attention of the family and others to the fact, and re- 
marked, that if Henry could speak, he w r ould tell of 
visions in the spheres. His first and only words were, 



THE NEW BIRTH. 65 

*0, how happy ! O, how happy I am ! Such heavenly 
scenes as I have witnessed ! I would give all the world 
to return again to the angelic visions, and experience 
such happiness once more.' These were his last and only 
words spoken that evening. In a brief period the body 
lay a lifeless corpse, to be no more vivified. The spirit 
left without a struggle." 

E. J. Shellhouse, writing from Roseville, Cal., speaks 
of a brother, and the scenes accompanying his ascension, 
in 1848, from Colon, Mich. : — 

: ... At last, on the evening of the 8th of June, 
at about eight o'clock, he passed through, what we sup- 
posed, his death struggles. The physician, standing by 
the bedside, carefully examined his patient, and pro- 
nounced him f dead.' At this moment, my oldest brother 
stepped forward, and placing his hands under the shoul- 
ders of the dying brother, raised him to a sitting pos- 
ture, and loudly and repeatedly called his name. Calmly 
he opened his eyes, and, for the first time in three weeks, 
he spoke rational words. ? Why did you call me back? ' 
he exclaimed in a clear and firm voice. ? I was just 
going, and you called me back. O, w T hat beautiful 
music I have heard, and such scenes, more glorious and 
beautiful than anything I ever imagined in my life. 
And such throngs of people, with many of whom I am 
acquainted.' After giving repeated descriptions of what 
he had -seen and heard, he said, f I will go at three 
o'clock in the morning,' which he repeated frequently 
during the night. Just at three o'clock in the morning 
he became silent, and passed on to the scenes he had 
described, without even the movement of a muscle. " 
5 



66 LOOKING BEYOND. 

That very night one of the two sisters was entranced, 
when she had a vision of her departed brother, saw him 
plainly, and the very beauties he had described. 

John A. Perry, of Elkhorn, Wis., states that when 
Mrs. Bunker, wife of Alex. Bunker, of Troy Centre, 
both Quakers by birth, was dying in her good old age, 
her son all the while held her hand ; she ceased to 
breathe ; the pulse was silent ; but in a few moments she 
returned in a gentle manner, opened those eyes again, 
moved those pallid lips, saying, " O, Nathaniel, why 
did you call me back ? I have been to heaven ! Why 
did you call me back ? " What a tangible proof of the 
identity of spirit, and of the law of love, that by the 
touch of a hand we may for a moment at least unloose 
the bands of death, let in the light into the chamber 
once more, to hear the voice of our beloved this time 
speaking as an echo from the heavenly home. That 
son, greeting his mother once more, and that father and 
sister, and other friends, hearing the familiar words, 
said sweetly another "good by," and she was free for- 
ever. 

A lady friend relates the circumstance of her mother's 
sorrow over her daughter. She would not, could not 
give her up. The last breath heaved and died away 
as a zephyr, and the exclamation, K She is gone ! " fell 
so heavy upon the mother, that she wrung her hands, 
and said so pleadingly, "Q, my child, come back ! come 
back ! " The child heard, a gentle wave of life swept 
over the form again, the spirit entered the body, the 
pale lips moved, the glazed eyes opened, and she 
whispered "Mother!" and instantly departed. That 



THE NEW BIRTH. 67 

familiar word touched the mother's soul yet deeper, and 
she prayed for death to deliver up its prey, when, lo ! 
the spirit obeyed the summons to give one more glim- 
mer of undying affection. This going and coming were 
repeated to the third time, when the daughter, gathering 
then all her strength, turned to her weeping mother 
such a pleading look, saying, "O, mother ! I have been 
with the angels. I am wanted there. Will you not 
let me go?" That look, and that plea, were sufficient. 
The mother said, calmly, " Go, my daughter, to your 
joy, and bid me come when I am ready." 
• It nray be wise, under certain conditions, to hold the 
hand of the departing one. If the friend so doing is 
calm and prayerful, it may gratefully aid the exit of the 
spirit. But we should not refuse the heavenly journey 
when there is no hope of recovery, and longer remain- 
ing is a continuation of suffering;. 

" We grow at last by custom to believe 

That really we live : 
While all these shadows that for things we take, 
Are but the empty dreams which in death's sleep we make. 
But these fantastic errors of our dreams 

Lead us to solid wrong : 
We pray God our friends' torments to prolong, 
And wish, uncharitably for them, 
To be as long a dying as Methusalem. 
The ripened soul longs from his prison to come, 
But we would seal, and sowTip, if we could the womb. 
We seek to close and plaster up by art, 

The cracks and breaches of the extended shell. 

And in that narrow cell, 

Would rudely force to dwell, 
The noble bird already winged to part." 

A Wisconsin friend, called to the death-bed of a 



68 LOOKING BEYOND. 

neighbor, found him struggling to get away. There 
was no possible chance to restore the dying man. 
Instantly he was under control of a wise spirit, who 
caused him to make a few vertical passes with his hands, 
when the neighbor, giving his mediumistic brother a 
grateful look, sunk into rest. 

If it is "sweet to die," let us be sweet in spirit. 
When Mirabeau was " passing over," he ordered his 
friends to pour perfumes and roses over him ; and " let 
me die," he added, " to the sound of delicious music." 

At the death of her aged mother, in New York, a 
Methodist lady, whose name is forbidden here; being 
under spirit control, could not weep, but clapped her 
hands, shouting, " Glory to God ! mother has arrived." 

Mrs. Mary J. Fetherolf, of Tamaqua, Pa., gives 
this beautiful test of a child's prophecy and spiritual 
vision : — 

" Emma Hendix, who departed on the 14th of De- 
cember, 1865, was the daughter of Sarah and Daniel 
Hendix (members of the Evangelical Church), and was 
nearly ten years old. About three months before her 
death, whilst in perfect health, she said she would e get 
sick and die, and go to her baby brother.' On the day 
she was taken sick, she said to her father, *I am going 
to die.' Two weeks before her departure, she asked 
him if he did not see the angels. At the same time she 
asked a neighbor woman whether she did not see the 
angel on the bureau ; and she replied, * Do you mean 
your doll?' ? No^ no, the little angel!' She was 
clairvoyant a full week. She asked her parents why 
they troubled themselves to call the doctor, for it was 



THE NEW BIRTH. 69 

no use, as she was going 'home to the baby.' She 
many times called the names of her grandfather, grand- 
mother, and ? baby brother,' who had died some time 
before, and of whom she was very fond while they were, 
living. She would say, * all here ; ' and when asked 
how many, she would answer, f five, ten, fifteen, twenty, 
all here again.' Immediately before her death, she 
called her relatives to her, bade them f good by,' and 
said, ? I am going home ; they are waiting for me,' and 
so passed peacefully on, as if just fallen asleep." 

Years agone, when a butterfly-boy, the author's 
mother paled with consumption. She said, "Good by, 
dear son ! " That saying, that kiss, that fond look 
imaged in my soul ! Looking upward, she said, 
"Angels ! " and was gone. O, the sorrow of that mo- 
ment ! for who had knowledge then of this religion ? 
The death messenger came again and again, and sisters 
passed higher, each beholding "a door in heaven" 
opened for their reception. Mother then appeared ! 
These bereavements have shaded my whole pilgrimage 
with a pensive reflectiveness, but they have been clouds 
of transfiguration, whence a voice has so often spoken, 
" This is my beloved son ! " 

"When Edward L. Hilbourne,ofCharlestown,Mass.," 
writes Sarah C. Dunbar, " was ? passing over,' he heard 
spirit music, and saw a young girl who brought him 
rare flowers. She was his sister e Rose Bud,' so called 
in spirit life, afterwards recognized as such." 

Samuel J. May, who has just "ascended in golden 
goodness," reverting to the dreamy past, recalls the deep 
religious impression he obtained in early life by the 



70 LOOKING BEYOND. 

departure of his brother, and the enchantment for all 
life which that spirit awoke by a subsequent vision. 
They had slept together, ate together, and were in- 
separable companions. That dear brother passed on 
when Samuel was five years old. He says, — 

"There lay my beloved Edward, his eyes shut, his 
body cold, giving no replies to the tender things that 
were said to him, taking no notice of all that was being 

7 O O 

done to him or about him. I gave myself up to a pas- 
sion of grief, not knowing the meaning of what I saw, 
but feeling that some awful change had come over him. 
When the room was darkened, and my father and moth- 
er were about to withdraw, I begged them to let me 
lie down with Edward. My importunity was so pas- 
sionate that my parents were almost afraid, and quite 
too tender, to withstand it ; so I was covered with a 
shawl, and laid by my dead brother. When left alone 
with him I well remember how I kissed his cold cheeks 
and lips, pulled open his eyelids, begged him to speak 
to me, and finally cried myself to sleep. 

" Most vivid is my recollection of the funeral, of the 
solemn procession to the burial-ground, and of the 
weeping of friends and relatives. When I saw them 
, take the coffin from the carriage, and carry it off towards 
the tomb, I insisted upon seeing what they were going 
to do with Edward. So my uncle, Samuel May, took 
me in his arms, descended with me into the family vault, 
and showed me where they had put away my brother. 
Then he pointed out the little coffins in which were the 
remains of several of my brothers and sisters, who had 
lived and died before I was born, and the coffin in which 
my grandfather was laid eight years before. 



THE NEW BIRTH. 71 

w My kind uncle opened one of the coffins and let me 
see how decayed the body had become, and told me that 
Edward's body would decay in like manner, and become 
like the dust of the earth ; but while revealing to me 
these sad facts, he assured me most tenderly that all 
these departed ones were still living, that my dear 
brother's spirit was not in the coffin, but was clothed 
with another and more beautiful body, and living in 
heaven with God and the angels. I went home in a 
sort of maze, crying, and asking questions which human 
wisdom could not answer. 

w I remember that rny only brother Charles, then a 
lad of fourteen or fifteen years of age, tenderly took me 
to his room, lay down with me on his bed, and tried to 
comfort me and himself by telling me all that he 
imagined to be true about heaven, God, and the angels, 
assuring me again, as others had done, that Edward 
had gone to live in that blessed place, in that happy and 
glorious company. 

'When night came I was put to bed, in the bed 
where I had so often slept with Edward. Sleep soon 
came to relieve my young spirit, wearied with grief and 
strange excitement, and in my dreams all that had been 
told me, proved true. The ceiling of the room seemed 
to open, a glorious light burst in, and from the midst 
of it came down my lost brother, attended by a troop of 
child-angels. They left him, and he lay down beside 
me, as he used to do. He told me what a beautiful 
place heaven was, and how all the angels loved one 
another. There he lay till morning, when the ceiling 
above opened again, and the troop of angels came to 
i 



72 LOOKING BEYOND. 

bear him back to heaven. He kissed me, sent messages 
of love to father and mother, brother and sisters, and 
gladly rejoined the celestial company. 

w So soon as I awoke and was dressed, I hurried down 
to tell the family what I had seen, and to give them the 
kisses and- messages that dear Edward had sent them. 
The remarkable thing about this dream was, that it was 
many times repeated, that night after night I enjoyed 
the presence of my brother, that morning after morning 
I went down to the family with renewed assurances of 
love from the one who was gone. 

" By degrees my grief abated ; the loss of my brother 
was in some measure supplied by other playmates ; new 
things attracted my attention and occupied my thoughts. 
But I have never forgotten my Edward ; the events of 
his death and burial, and the heavenly vision, are all 
still vivid in my memory ; and I believe the experience 
had great influence in awakening and fixing in my mind 
the full faith I have in the continuance of life after 
death, — a faith so strong, that I do not believe more 
fully in the life that now is than in that which is 
to come." 

Lydia Maria Child, who was present at the exit hour 
of Isaac T. Hopper, the Quaker emancipationist, — that 
good man and true, — says, "Sensible to the last, he 
wanted his friends to put his form in a white coffin, 
made of plain boards, and get a poor man to construct 
it. He heard voices, saying, — 

"'We have come to take thee away.'" When no other 
one wa§ present, he said to Mrs. C, — 

" Maria, is there anything peculiar in this room ? " 



THE NEW BIRTH. 73 

"I replied, f No; why do you ask that question?'" 

"Because," said he, "you all look so beautiful; and 
that covering on the bed has such glorious colors, as I 
never saw." 

" The natural world," says this author, "was trans- 
figured before his dying senses ; perhaps by an influx 
of light from the spiritual." 

Mrs. E. McGraw, of Plymouth, Wis., says that her 
Methodist father, "just before the dying moment, reached 
out his hand to a spirit, Thomas Swift, and conversed 
with him familiarly, as in former years." 

Rev. J. G. Bartholomew, in his happy discourse on 
the death of Rev. D. K. Lee (Universalist) , gives this 
passage : Referring to the love the departed ever 
cherished for children, he recalls, with joyful emotion, 
the opening up of the spiritual powers of that revered 
brother, just as the curtain dropped that hides from the 
shadows of earth : — 

" I do not wonder that in his last moments a vision 
of children's faces was opened to his soul ; I do not 
wonder that he should say, f The children, the beauti- 
ful children, dorft you see them?' God sends his 
angels to us in our trying hours, to bring us strength 
and comfort, and to fill us with their heavenly peace. 
He sends such angels as the heart craves most to see. 
And I do not wonder that angel children crowded around 
his dying bed. There were the children that had gone 
up from this congregation to join the glorified in heaven ; 
the children in whom he took such interest in life, whose 
hearts he moulded, and on whose minds he poured the 
light of truth ; the children in whose plays and pastimes 



74 LOOKING BEYOND. 

he had so often taken part ; they came to him in his 
dying hour to welcome him to their home above." 

The lihacan relates a scene at the death-bed of 
Kitty Skinner, who departed in Ithaca, N. Y. She 
was one of the victims of the Lang family poisoning 
case : " Little Kitty continued to grow worse until 
between seven and eight o'clock Wednesday night, 
when her suffering became intense. She could with 
difficulty be kept quiet, and only by giving a great deal 
of anaesthetics. All the time she asked for cooling sub- 
stances, as snow and ice, on account of her burning 
stomach. At last death came to the little sufferer's 
relief, but gradually, for after she became easier she 
could talk. She talked constantly of her relatives, and 
said she saw * Bella Lang (who was buried last week), 
and she had a beautiful white dress, all plaited about the 
waist and gathered in the skirt.' She said she wanted 
to be dressed like Bella, she was so beautiful. Not 
long before she died, in the midst of her talk, she said, 
* Papa ' (her father was buried on the 23d of January) , 
? take hold of my hand a»d help me across.' Between 
six and seven, Thursday morning, she breathed her 
last." 

J. Raymond Tallmage, of Calumet, Wis., sends this 
note, illustrative of the fact that mediums are as cognizant 
of the departure of friends, even when not immediately 
present, as the natural eye is of material objects. "In 
the spring of 1858, Charles W. Raymond, of this place, 
passed to the other life. I was present. A lady in a 
distant part of the house suddenly started for the sick 
room, saying, ? Charles is dying ! ' As she made the 



THE NEW BIRTn. 75 

exclamation, he looked towards a vacant part of the 
room with a most pleasant and beautiful expressive 
countenance, saying, f She has come for me ; I must 
go ! ' and fell asleep." 

Uriah Roundey, of Spafford, N. Y., speaking of his 
grandmother, who was ninety years old, and had been 
blind twelve years, states that just before her exit she 
lay a long time in a state of "torpor or trance." At 
last she suddenly raised her head, just as the spirit was 
leaving, and addressing a friend present, said, "You 
tell Laurens (her son) I can wait no longer for him ; 
for there comes a band of angels, with my mother, and 
I must go." 

Mrs. H. S. Benjamin, matron of the Wisconsin state 
prison, relates an instance of the capacity of the spirit 
to see even when outer vision was blinded by disease. 
Her beautiful sister, Annie Cook, seventeen years old, 
unconscious that she was so near her friends from the 
spirit world, exclaimed, "O, mother, I am blind — I 
am dying — but I cannot see ; how shall I know my 
father ? " The next moment a wave of light fell upon 
her spirit, and the heavens opened, and there was her 
dear parent. "Q, yes," she said, so calmly, "he does 
know me — I see him — he has come for me ! " and then 
all was still. 

Charlotte Barron, of Boston, Mass., was scarcely six 
years old ; her mother stood weeping by her side. The 
little girl caught a light, and when it burst upon her in 
full blaze, she turned such a look upon her parent, say- 
ing, "O, mother — mother — I see father !" and her 
father took her home. 



76 LOOKING BEYOND. 

William Shew, of Cordova, 111., with the respect 
usual to a soul that loves the spiritual, says that his 
wife, a few hours before her departure, " saw many 
cherubs and seraphs, and heard their songs ; and after- 
wards her f soldier boy,' William, conversed with her 
till the casket broke." 

Rachel Colburn, of Geneva, Wis., seventeen years 
old, when conscious of death's call, said to all, ".Good- 
bye — come to me. O, yes — I see now; there is 
Bertha (her sister's departed little child) , she can walk 
now. There is David's father (her mother's first hus- 
band, whom she had never before seen), and there is 
Mrs. French's child. Why, these little babes have 
silver bells in their hands ! " 

"Kiss him for me," said Mrs. French. 

"O, yes, I will," said Rachel ; and the kiss on those 
spirit lips was so sweet, that earth was forgotten, for 
she was in heaven ! 

Mrs. Margaret D. Read, of Salem, Mass., saw a 
band of angels coming to take her home; it opened, 
and she shouted " Mother ! " and in an instant was gone. 

Daniel W. Hull, who administered the consolations 
of the angels' gospel to the bereft, writes of Dexter B. 
Palmer, of North Windham, Conn., "Spirits of many 
who had lived in the neighborhood crowded around his 
bed, and as his voice died away he was heard to call 
over the names of those who were receiving him on the 
other shore." 

J. G. Fish, speaking of Mary Arabella Rhodes, of 
Philadelphia, writes about his interview with her just 
before her exit. "'Tell the people,' she said, f Idid 



THE NEW BIRTH. 77 

not die ; I only went to the loved embrace of the dear 
mother and sisters who were awaiting me on the other 
side. . . . My dear blessed mother and sister came 
to me so frequently, and talk so sweetly, and tell me 
they are only waiting for me, and I see them so plainly, 
and hear them talk so lovingly to me.' " 

A lucid writer describes the closing up of this life 
with Anna P. Hazard, of South Portsmouth, R. I. 
She had cultivated spiritual affections, and was there- 
fore intromitted into the society of angels : " In a season 
of great physical distress, she suddenly became quiet, 
whilst her eyes seemed earnestly peering into vacancy. 
Gradually all traces of suffering passed from her fea- 
tures, and her face lit up with a radiant smile, as she 
pronounced the name of f Mother,' who, with two spirit 
aunts, became distinctly visible to her, and with whom 
she now entered into delightful communion. Some time 
before her sickness she saw. in a dream a remarkably 
beautiful lily, unlike any she had ever seen before, 
which disappeared upon her reaching out her hand to 
pluck it, whilst a grave-like looking hole opened in the 
ground beneath where it had stood. This same lily, 
for the first time since, was now again presented to her 
interior vision, and upon her asking her spirit mother 
if she was to join her soon, she smiled and bowed her 
head in token of assent. The delightful vision lasted 
for some twenty minutes, during which period her coun- 
tenance continued to wear the same joyous expression, 
whilst with a clear and unclouded intellect she inter- 
changed messages between, and communed alternately 
with her father and sisters on earth, and her mother 



78 LOOKING BEYOND. 

and aunts in heaven. She described her spirit friends 
as being clothed in beautiful but not unfamiliar garments, 
moving in a surpassingly lovely wilderness of trees and 
flowers, and enveloped in a golden atmosphere, the mel- 
low tints and softness of which were wholly indescribable." 

Rev. W. H. Cudworth (Unitarian), in a lecture 
delivered in Music Hall, Boston, January 20, 1871, 
made these statements, so truthfully said and so feelingly 
enforced : "It is a well-known fact that Governor Brough, 
of Ohio, had this experience, though not a religious 
man. He was lying upon his death-bed, and suddenly 
extended his hand, and exclaimed that he saw the forms 
of friends around him, and that others were waiting for 
him on the further side. 

"So it was of Senator Foote, of Vermont. He was 
the Chairman of the Committee of Extension at the 
National Capitol. He was taken sick, grew hopelessly 
so, and his friends came around him, bidding him adieu. 
He expressed a strong desire to look once more upon 
the dome before he died. They lifted him up, that he 
might see the wonderful structure towering in the sky, 
and as he was looking, he suddenly cried out, f O, 
how beautiful ! the gates are wide open ; ' and sank back 
again, exhausted and dying, to enter in spirit through 
the open doors ! I believe in this opening of the vision ; 
the Christian world, also, is full of this faith in the hour 
of death, yet refuses to acknowledge the conclusions to 
which such an admission inevitably lead. In so doing, 
they are not giving Spiritualism fair play. I have just 
found an extract from the Independent, which I will 
read as an instance in point : — 



•THE NEW BIRTH. 79 

w f At the time when President Olin was seized with 
that illness which was the precursor of his death, his 
youngest child, a babe of about two years old, was ill 
and restless, though the parents did not then apprehend 
a fatal result. The day of discovered danger, the father 
was walking in the room where his child lay, when the 
babe suddenly called " Papa ! " desiring to be lifted in 
its father's arms. "Pa, take baby ! " Dr. Olin took 
the child, and walked up and down the room. The 
child said, "Pa, kiss baby ! Mamma, kiss baby ! " and, 
when this was done, looked up and exclaimed, "JIow, 
God, take baby ! " and immediately breathed its' last in 
the father's arms. Was not this a ministration from the 
invisible world? The believing father received it as 
such, and was comforted. Children and death are 
divine teachers. w Out of the mouths of babes and 
sucklings Thou hast perfected praise."' 

r ' A similar experience took place in a Christian family 
not acquainted with the science or phenomena of modern 
Spiritualism, in regard to a child who could never 
remember its mother, who had died before she could 
remember her. And it was her custom to ask of her 
friends or visitors : f Now tell me about mamma ; ' and 
she would ask frequently to be taken into the parlor to 
f see mamma ; ' a portrait of her being kept there. The 
child grew weaker and weaker, till finally she was upon 
her death-bed, and friends came in to see her pass 
away. She lay so still that some of those present said, 
f She is gone ; ' and her father went close to her and 
said : f Darling, don't you know papa?' No response ! 
He turned away with a sad heart, and said, c I'm afraid 



80 LOOKING BEYOND! 

she's gone ; ' when suddenly she raised her face, illumi- 
nated by the light of the celestial world, exclaiming : 
f Mother, dear mother ! ' " 

Adin Ballou, speaking of James Arnold Whipple, 
of Worcester, Mass., a philanthropic brother, thus 
shows us the pathway whither that patriot entered : w In 
religion he was a liberalist, verging for years on scepti- 
cism, but afterwards confirmed by Spiritualism into the 
strongest assurance of man's future immortal existence. 
Even after embracing Spiritualism, he doubted the uses 
of pijfiyer and personal exercises of pietistic devotion. 
But under the chastening discipline of sickness, he was 
fully drawn away from that externalism of feeling into 
the sphere of child-like docility, contrition, tender- 
hearted and confiding prayerfulness. It was a blessed 
unfoldment to him, his companion and friends. Mean- 
time his spiritual vision was opened to behold bright, 
cheering, consoling spirits from the immortal world, who 
gathered around his dying bed, and gave him a sweet 
welcome to the deathless mansions." 

When that faithful apostle, L. Judd Pardee, was un- 
winding from his frail tenement, the spirits wrote to 
him through a medium, "Fear not; be strong and full 
of courage ; show how a Spiritualist can die. Thy 
mother and Mary are seated upon the deck of the little 
boat which is to bear thee to the other shore ; it is 
wreathed with ivy leaves, and all things are prepared 
for thy reception ; a little longer thou must be patient, 
and then thou shalt be free." 

James B. Buffington, of Warren, R. I., says of his 
sister Amanda, who departed in February, 1869, "Hav- 



THE NEW BIRTH. 81 

ing taken no drugs to stupefy the brain, and no gloomy 
minister to darken the mind, while friends were stand- 
ing around the bed in calmness, her eyes brightened, 
her countenance lit up with a smile, gazing upward. 
'What do you see, Amanda?' asked her mother. 
c Geraldine ! ' was the answer. That was our sister, 
years ago lost at sea." 

When the beloved Judge Wheelock, of Rockford, 
111., was ready to exchange worlds, he exclaimed, 
"What light is that?" On being informed there was 
no light in the room, he said, "Ah, but I see a bright 
light ; " then clasping his hands, he said, " It is all right ; 
I come." Soon he roused up, and said, " Charles ! 
Charles ! " His son-in-law, whose name is Charles 
Lewis, went to him, and said, "What do you want, 
father? Here I am." He opened his eyes, and cried 
out Math a loud voice, " Charles Wheelock ! Charles 
Wheelock ! " and immediately ceased breathing. Charles 
was a son of his, who died in California some years 
ago, and from whom the judge had had several commu- 
nications through different mediums. 

A friend thus describes the departure of Mrs. N. O. 
Pinkerton, one of our spiritual mediums and lectur- 
ers : — 

" f O,' she exclaimed, r this is a glorious doctrine to die 
by, friends ; continue in the good work — it will be a 
great thing if you can only free a few from the shackles 
of theological dogmas.' She bade the unstable to stand 
fast, and exclaimed, in transports of rapture and de- 
light, ' This is the best day of my life ; I hear the angels 
singing ; I am happy, happy, happy ! ' To the doubt- 
6 



82 LOOKING BEYOND. 

ing she said, while her eyes shone with heavenly bright- 
ness, c Doubt no more — I know there is a blessed, glo- 
rious, eternal life.' After she had taken leave of the 
many friends who stood beside her, she asked them to 
sing, and while tears choked their utterance, they sang — 

' Joyfully, joyfully, onward I move, 
Bound for the land of bright spirits above.'- 

She clapped her hands for joy, in response to the senti- 
ments of the hymn. f O, hinder me not, for I want to 
go home.' f I'm going.' f I am almost over the river.' 
'The voyage is pleasant.'" 

When a spirit is sufficiently strong at its "new birth," 
and can have a good medium at the moment, the instant 
it leaves the form there may be a manifestation. A 
case of this kind occurred February 2, 1871, in Lime 
Rock, Conn., as related by Joshua H. Rogers, giving 
names of reliable witnesses, No sooner had his aunt* 
Lydia Tomkins, "breathed her last," than her own 
daughter, standing by her side, was entranced by her 
overjoyed spirit; and there and then spoke audibly, and 
in so convincing a manner, that instead of appearing a 
scene of death, it was a "feast of soul." "That is cer- 
tainly my wife speaking ! " exclaimed her husband, with 
a thrill of rapture. 

Mrs. David Wilson was visited by her dear husband, 
through a medium, "even when his tenantless body lay 
in the room, in marble coldness." 

Rooms where media are, more especially when depart- 
ing, are Memnons of spiritual music ; the very fibres 
of the walls and furniture are polarized. 



THE NEW BIRTH. 83 

"All houses wherein men have lived and died 

Are haunted houses. Through the open doors 
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, 
With feet that make no sound upon the floors." 

John Wetherby communicates this fact as related to 
him by a Methodist minister : — • 

K This man's sister had the diphtheria, and died. She 
had the disease badly — her palate was all gone, and 
she could not utter a word, and with difficulty even a 
whisper. Just before dying, she made signs to her 
mother to go out of the room, who did so, shutting the 
chamber door. No one was in the room but the dying, 
speechless girl, when beautiful music was heard in that 
room. All the family listened to it, some seven or eight, 
the words thus beautifully sung being ? Fading, still 
fading,' — a favorite with the sick girl. When the music 
was over, they opened the door ; the girl had a sweet 
smile, but could not speak, and in a few moments died." 

rf A good woman," writes Andrew Glendinning to 
J. Burns's Human Nature, "whom adversity had made 
homeless, called for assistance at the house of a friend 
in Greenock, England. Food and shelter were both 
given; she became unwell, and,. in a few days after 
music was heard in the humble apartment where she lay. 
The melodious sounds — such as might be produced by 
several instruments — were wafted -across the kitchen in 
front of the bed. The poor woman remarked, ? You 

I will not be troubled with me any longer ; they have 
come for me ; ' and so she passed away to the summer 
land, where want of gold will not deprive her of a suit- 



84 LOOKING BEYOND. 

George W. Wilson writes of Mrs. Joicy Sweet, of 
Auburn, O., who passed on in November, 1865 : ^The 
day before her death she exclaimed, f There is father!' 
though he passed to the spirit realm two years ago. 
Her daughter asked, f Do you see your father?' and she 
replied,* ' His spirit.' A few minutes later she spoke of 
hearing f sweet singing' and , ' beautiful preaching." 

E. W. Stevens, of Janesville, Wis., furnishes this 
beautiful description of the departure of his aunt, Mrs. 
Tabathy Wood : — 

ft While the bloom of beauty was on her cheek, and 
the loves that had so fondly entwined themselves about 
her were yet young, the angels came for her. Death 
insinuated stealthily his icy fingers about her heart- 
strings, while the gentle- wavings of peace forbade her 
utter a single movement. Lovingly her inner con- 
sciousness watched the opening portals. Affection's foot- 
steps fell lightly on the maple floor. Subdued were the 
tender voices, as they cjiokingly whispered, c She is 
dying.' Night was drawing her sable pall over the 
departing day, and the curtained windows excluded the 
gentle starlight. The crimson tide crept back towards 
the struggling heart. Affection's ear hovered closely to 
catch the last r adieu.' Tearful eyes with suppressed 
breath watched for the last throb of the heart, and felt 
for the last slight pressure of the hand. But see ! She 
raises those soft eyelids once again, looks inquiringly 
about the room, and, with much composure, asks aloud, 
f Who is it that sings so beautifully?' On being an- 
swered, f No one,' she replied, f Yes, the angels are 
sinking ! ' And with a full, clear voice she broke forth 



■» o 



THE NEW BIRTH. 85 

in singing with them the tune of f Northfield ' to the 
hymn beginning, 

* How tong, dear Saviour, 0, how long 
Shall this bright hour delay ? 
Fly swifter round ye wheels of time, 
And bring the welcome day.' 

Then her pure spirit was wafted to heaven, September 
20, 1813." 

Margaret Howitt, in describing the last hours of Miss 
Bremer, says, — 

"That (Christmas) night she dreamed, as she told us 
the next morning, of hearing the most glorious music, 
such as she never heard in reality ; now, of a certainty, 
this music had been realized to her. Soon afterwards 
she began to speak of death, and said that ? she would 
like to remain a little longer to finish the work she had 
begun.' Later. on, said she, 'Now I am so tired, that if 
God were to call me, I am content.' Afterwards she 
said, as if speaking portions of inner thought, 'God's 
light in Nature ! There is something great in the voice 
of Nature. 1 have a sense of the Divine Perfection* — 
it is good — it is beautiful ! ' " 

The music she heard was such as charmed the sainted 
John, when " in spirit on the Lord's day " he heard music 
in heaven. It was the welcome of angels — prelude to 
the undying harmonies of the heavens. 

Isaac P. Greenleaf, an apostolic brother, writes that 
Charles Barker, of Exeter, Me., who had learned the 
way by the spiritual oracles, saw, when passing higher, 
the " angel band who had come to welcome him to his 
spirit home, and heard the sweet strains of melody as 



86 LOOKING BEYOND. 

sung by angel lips, to cheer him in his passage to the 
better land." 

Mons. A. de Beauchesne, of Paris, in a book en- 
titled "The Dauphin, his Life, his Agony, and his 
Death," thus relates the last scenes on the earthly side 
of that unfortunate son of Louis XVI. The young 
prince (about ten years of age), as he lay upon his sick 
bed, exclaimed that he heard music. 

"Gomin, surprised, asked him, f Where do you hear 
the music?' 'From on high.' 'How long since?' 
* Since you have been on your knees. Don't you hear 
it? Listen! listen!' And the child raised his failing 
arm, and opened his large eyes, lighted up with ecstasy. 
His poor guardian, not wishing to destroy this sweet 
and heavenly illusion, set himself to listen also, with the 
pious desire of hearing w T hat could not be heard. 

"After some moments of attention, the child started 
again, his eyes glistened, and he exclaimed in an inex- 
pressible transport, ? In the midst of all the voices I 
heard my mother's ! ' 

"This word seemed, as it fell from the orphan's lips, 
to remove all his pain. His contracted brows expanded, 
and his countenance brightened up with that ray of 
serenity which gives assurance of deliverance or victory. 
With his eyes fixed upon a vision, his ear listening to 
the distant music of one of those concerts that human 
ear has never heard, there appeared to spring forth in 
his child's soul another existence. 

" An instant afterwards the brilliancy of his eye be- 
came extinguished, he crossed his arms upon his breast, 
and an expression of sinking showed itself upon his face. 



THE NEW BIRTH. 87 

w Gomin observed him closely, and followed with an 
anxious eye every movement. His breathing was no 
longer painful ; his eye alone seemed slowly to wander, 
looking from time to time towards the window. . . . 
Gomin asked him what it was he was looking at in that 
direction. The child looked at his guardian a moment, 
and although the question was repeated, he seemed not 
to understand it, and did not answer. 

"Lasne came up from below to relieve Gomin ; the 
latter went out, his heart oppressed, but not more 
anxious than on the evening before, for he did not 
expect an immediate termination. Lasne took his seat 
near the bed ; the prince regarded him for a long time 
with a fixed and dreamy look. When he made a slight 
movement, Lasne asked him how he was, and if he 
wanted anything. The child said, 'Do you think that 
my sister has heard the music? How happy it would 
have made her ! ' Lasne was unable to answer. The 
eager and penetrating look, full of anguish, of the 
dying child darted towards the window. An exclama- 
tion of happiness escaped his lips ; then, looking to- 
wards his guardian, he said, ? I have one thing to tell 
you.' . . . Lasne approached and took his hand ; the 
little head of the prisoner fell upon his guardian's breast, 
who listened to him, but in vain. His last words had 
been spoken. God had spared the young martyr the 
agony 6f the dying rattle ; God had kept for himself 
the last thought of the chilct, Lasne pujt his hand upon 
the heart of the child : the heart of Louis XVII. had 
ceased to beat. It was half past two o'clock in the 
afternoon." 



88 LOOKING BEYOND. 

"Bcehrnen passed to the summer In rid November 18, 
1624. Early in the morning he called his loved son to 
his side, and asked if he heard that excellent music. 
Receiving a reply in the negative, he directed* him to 
open the door, that he might hear it better. Asking, 
afterwards, c What the hour?' he was told f two ' ; upon 
which he remarked that his time was 'yet three hours 
hence.' When it was near six o'clock, blessing his wife 
and son, he took leave of them, saying, c Now I go 
hence into paradise !' He then bade his son turn him, 
and with a deep, peaceful sigh, his sweet spirit departed." 

Paganini had the most valuable stringed instruments 
in the world. One of these was very ancient, having 
but one string. This he patted and hugged as if a 
sweet child, and for eight hours improvised upon it the 
most heavenly music ; and then fell back in a swoon, 
for he heard a "new song from the angel choirs," and 
passed higher at Nice, May 27, 1840. 

" When Mozart had given the finishing touches to his 
wonderful 'Requiem,' his last and sweetest composition, 
he fell into a quiet and composed slumber. On awak- 
ening, he said to his daughter, r Come hither, my 
Emilie ; my task is done; the Requiem is done — my 
Requiem is finished.' 'O no,' said the gentle girl, the 
tears filling her eyes, *you will be better now ; let me 
go and bring you something refreshing.' f Do not de- 
ceive yourself, my love,' he replied, ? I am beyond hu- 
man aid ; I am dying, and I look to Heaven's mercy 
only for aid. You spoke of refreshment — take these 
last notes of mine, sit down by my piano here, sing 
them with the hymn of your sainted mother ; let me 



THE NEW BIRTH. 89 

once more hear those tones which have so long been my 
solace and delight.' His daughter complied, and, with 
a voice tremulous with emotion, sung the following* — 

* Spirit, thy labor is o'er, 

Thy earthly probation is run ; 
Thy steps are now bound for the unknown shore, 
And the race of immortals begun. 

' Spirit, look not on the strife, 

Or the pleasures of earth with regret ; 
Pause not on the threshold of limitless life 
To mourn for the day that is set. 

* Spirit, no fetters can bind, 

No wicked have power to molest ; 
There the weary like thee, the wretched, shall find 
A haven, a mansion of rest. 

i Spirit, how bright is the road 

For which thou art now on the wing ! 
Thy home — it will be with the angels of God, 
Their loud alleluias to sing.' 

"As she concluded, she dwelt for a moment on the 
low melancholy notes of the piece, and then turned 
from the instrument to meet the approving smile of her 
father. It was the still, passionless smile which the 
rapt and departed spirit left upon the features." 



"THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST." 

" Promise to kiss me on the forehead when I am dead — I shall 
feel it." — Victor Hugo. 

NOTHING is so beautiful as a virtuous old age. The 
vine climbs the ruined walls, pendent with mellow 
grapes — climbs and hangs over the " other side," and 
the decay that fed the blossoming and fruiting is lost 
to view. Sweet it is to go hence, after a career of use- 
fulness, conscious of having never designedly wronged 
a Single mortal. It is the foretaste of paradise to 
come, the glory of life, and the rest of soul. Josephine 
— wife of the ambitious Napoleon who sacrificed love 
for power, and therefore fell as a star to rise no more — 
said to Emperor Alexander, just as she looked up for 
spirit guidance, "At least I shall die regretted; I have 
always desired the happiness of France ; I did all in my 
power to contribute to it ; and I can say with truth to 
all of you now present at my last moments, that the 
first wife of Napoleon never caused a single tear to flow." 
The best service we can render is to live a long and 
useful life. Who, then, can be sad when the change 
comes? A pure-souled woman writes about her father, 
Goff Moore, who recently passed on, laden with the 
experience of over eighty years, w Yes, I am glad; I 
love him so. Only think of it — eight of father's family 
over there greeting his arrival." 

90 



THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST. 91 

Catherine H. Fenno, at the ripe age of eighty-six — 
so writes her son, "A. W. F.," — "a strong-minded 
woman," was enveloped in a sphere of rest, like that 
of the Christ, who said, " Father, I have finished the » 
work thou gavest me to do." This is ever the result 
of a "well spent life ; " and the language is ever like 
hers : " Let me go home ! " 

"In the other life," says Edmund H. Sears, "appears 
the wonderful paradox that the oldest people are the 
youngest. To grow in age is to come into everlasting 
youth. To become old in years is to put on the fresh- 
ness of perpetual prime. We drop from us the debris 
of the past ; we breathe the ether of immortality, and 
our cheeks mantle with eternal bloom." 

"You are getting into years." "Yes," replies Gail 
Hamilton; "but the years are getting into you; the. 
ripe, mellow years." 

In his rich sermon on "Old Age," Theodore Parker 
draws this figure, so natural to life : " The stick on 
his andirons snaps asunder, and falls outward. Two 
faintly-smoking brands stand there. Grandfather lays 
them together, and they flame up ; the two smokes are 
united in one flame. ? Even so let it be in heaven,' 
says grandfather." 

Our American Bryant, now almost the real of the 
picture he paints, with soul, we trust, white as his 
snowy locks, is so true to nature : — 

" We are not sad to see the gathered grain, 
Nor when their mellowed fruits the orchards cast, 
Nor when the yellow woods shake down the ripened mast; 
We sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled, 

His glowing course, rejoicing earth and sky, 



92 LOOKING BEYOND. 

In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled, 
Sinks where his islands of refreshments lie, 

And leaves the smile of his departure spread 

O'er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy mountain-head. 

And I am glad that he survived so long, 
And glad that he has gone to his reward ; 

Nor can I deem that Nature did him wrong, 
Softly to disengage the vital chord." 

Relatively speaking, it is a misfortune to die in child- 
hood or in youth. Children who depart need earth's 
battles and victories, as the oak the storms, and are 
unfitted for the lofty uses of ministration until they have 
served the requisite apprenticeship through secondary 
mediation, by returning to such homes again, infolded 
still in the affections of their parents, or such as Can 
nurture them physically, as their chosen matrons do 
spiritually in the heavenly homes above. 

When our beloved have gone, it is a commendable 
and universal custom to pay respect even to their ashes. 
But is it worthy of the endearment we feel towards the 
spirit to have a " funeral parade " ? Do you think the 
risen, spirit takes pleasure in seeing show, pomp, and 
fashion? Is that like heaven, like the ideas of the 
immortals? The more simple and humble the service, 
the deeper and sweeter is the spiritual impression. The 
home, not the church or hall, should be the last place 
to salute the * f clay tenement." Home, where the 
angel broke the casket and let the prisoner free, is the 
most appropriate place for the beautiful ceremonies of 
a funeral. More of soul can be felt there ; more of 
inspiration can come there. That battery for the 
spirits should not be scattered. 



THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST. 93 

The usual custom, too, of so much staring at the 
face of the form, sometimes making critical remarks, is 
reprehensible to a pure, modest taste. Far better would 
it be for mourners and neighbors and strangers to look 
beyond that " white veil," to find and see the emanci- 
pated spirit. 

And shall we put on "mourning," black apparel to 
be in fashion ? Is that respect for the " gone before ? " 
It is a useless cost and annoyance, especially to the 
poor. If any outer sign be given, let it be pure white, 
emblematic of the character we aspire after. A white 
ribbon, with a sprig of evergreen, would be significant 
at a funeral ; or do as the ancient Greeks, who had, 
withal, happy views of the "ascended gods," — wear 
garlands of roses during the days of mourning. 

"Kittie" Townsend, a darling little girl in Fond du 
Lac, Wis., had been instructed by her parents — 
though she was but six years old — in the beauties of 
the spiritual gospel, to regard death as beautiful, by 
w r hich we could the better entertain our angels of the 
household. Beiog on a visit in the summer of 1871, 
to New York State, she there for the first time saw 
the tenantless form of a sweet child, whose dear mother, 
a short time before, had passed higher to welcome it to 
her arms again. It was so beautiful ! ft Kittie" could 
not be kept away from it, but from her plays would 
steal so often alone into that silent room, and hold the 
child's hand, kiss the pale lips, and then, as if under a 
seraphic inspiration, talk with the child's spirit about 
its jo'y, its flowers up there, its playthings, its pets, its 
happy mother. Thus the mediumistic Kittle took away 



94 LOOKING BEYOND. 

all the gloom of death in that bereft home, and brought 
the angels in, till the place was a "holy of holies." 

We love to adorn the dead with the beautiful ; it em- 
blemizes to the eye the life beyond. But we err when 
we try to embalm the " sacred dust," or to lock it up in 
metallic coffins. Let them be of decayable wood, not 
black in color, that is gloomy, just like false ideas of 
death ; white is more significant. The sooner the body 
naturally, not artificially crumbles, the better, to recuper- 
ate waste. Let the enriching elements, improved and 
refined by their former contact with the departed spirit, 
grow trees and flowers and grasses upon the grave, 
planted there by some loving hand. Their precious 
roots will hug that dust so kindly, and our joy will 
enhance the joy of the recipient plucking the fruit of 
our fostering, watered by the tears of sympathy. And 
let us not associate that spot with the dead, but with the 
living*. There is where only the garment was relin- 
quished, when "divine service is over and finished, th& 
chanting hushed, the aisles deserted ; and to be contem- 
plated with as little terror and revolting as we gaze at 
the silent walls of some ruined cathedral." 

Victor Hugo, whose soul the immortal poets inspire, 
paints death in its true light : — 

" O, whoever it may be who have seen a beloved being 
sinking into the tomb, do not think it has left you. The 
beauty of death is its presence. Inexpressible presence 
of a soul which smiles upon our tearful eyes. The being 
that we mourn has disappeared, but has not departed. 
We no longer see its gentle face, but we feel that wave 
beneath its wings. The dead are invisible, but they are 



THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST. 95 

not absent. Let us be just to death. Let us not be 
ungrateful to death. It is not, as has been said, a ruin 
and a snare. It is an error to think that here in the 
darkness of the open grave all is lost to us. There 
everything is found again. The grave is a place of 
restitution; there the soul resumes the infinite, there it 
recovers its plenitude. There it re-enters on the posses- 
sion of all its mysterious nature ; it is set free from the 
body, from want, from its burden, from fatality. Death 
is the greatest of liberties ; it is also the furthest pro- 
gress. Death is a higher step for all who have lived 
upon its height. Dazzling and holy every one receives 
his increase, everything is transfigured in the light and 
by the light. He who has been no more than virtuous 
on earth becomes beauteous ; he who has only been 
beauteous becomes sublime ; and he who has only been 
sublime becomes good." 

Better is it to celebrate one's departure than physical 
birth. This was a memorable custom with the early 
spiritual Christians and classic Greeks and Romans. It 
should be renewed each year, as a " spiritual anniver- 
sary," to keep fresh in remembrance the virtues and 
beatitudes of our dear departed. "Not by lamentations 
and mournful chants," says Plutarch, " ought we to cele- 
brate the funerals of the good, but by hymns ; for in 
ceasing to be numbered with mortals, they enter upon 
the heritage of a diviner life." 

We should avoid probing yet deeper the sensitive 
weepers. Ours should be the work of healing, not 
of wounding. The hollow sound of dirt shovelled 
upon the coffin, when lowered into its narrow house, 



96 LOOKING BEYOND. 

grates upon the ear. It would seem as if our customs 
were instituted by those who delight in torture. Let 
the sounds then be words . of cheer, sweet words of 
sympathy, and enlivening, inspiring songs. Throwing 
sprigs of evergreen and flowers upon those "sacred 
ashes " is more in keeping with the soul's sense of pro- 
priety and respect. 

The custom once was, in the days of ignorance, for 
the minister to harrow up the feelings of the mourners 
as much as possible, by gloomy pictures of death, as an 
incentive to repentance. Such groaning even the beasts 
are not guilty of. Whilst there is pensive feeling, let it 
be the aim of the minister or speaker to render the 
services short, beautiful, and inspiring. Only those who 
have tasted of the Cf heavenly manna " mediumistically, 
who know something by experience of the world to 
come, are qualified to instruct and console the bereft and 
sorrowing. The person best qualified to speak a few 
words of comfort to the bereft is some dear friend or 
relative who is intimately acquainted with the "gone 
before." Then it is a home feeling. Open then the 
windows at the dome of the soul ; let the light enter ; 
look over and up into the great splendor of the immor- 
tal world, and tears will glisten with hope, and within 
the affections will rest the dove of the spirit. 

From the portals, which our beloved passed, unharmed 
by the damp and decay that again feed the living ; 
from the lovely home altars rusted with our tears, from 
the sad yet beautiful scenes of parting, let us turn to 
the new drama of existence, ourselves actors too, to 
reveal the good and holy, hidden beyond this attenu- 



THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST. 97 

ating veil. Patience, tired pilgrims ! Light from 
heaven is calm. As the beautiful of nature in flower 
and tree, lake and hill, refines the mind and thence its 
body, so association with angels moulds us irf their fair 
likenesses. Wherever they glide is left a trail of heav- 
enly light. " How beautiful upon the mountains are 
the feet of him that bringeth good tidings of good, that 
publisheth peace ! " 

Every moment we are physically wasting or dying, 
yet living on the same identities. We recognize each 
other by soul emotions. Even if friends have lived 
apart for years — if death divide them — by touch of 
spheres we are recognized- Identity is a law of 
spiritual species ; and how delicate is its action ! The 
soul applies its measure ; and if love comes with the step, 
or voice, or look, it is " meeting in heaven/' Play upon 
a piano near a well-toned guitar, and the one responds 
to the other. It is piano music, but a guitar voice. 
The two instruments blend their melodies. When we 
are good enough, and calm as a cloudless night of stars, 
we can go up into an orchestra of souls, and, as angels 
from earth and spirit lands greet each other again by 
familiar emotions, stirred by the rushing lights of 
minds that are kindred with our own ; and O, the 
music of that oratorio ! the deep harmony of that 
recognition ! By this inward touch of soul with soul, 
we "know each other there" as here, when in a moment 
all the reminiscences of the past spring into conscious 
being, embossed in the resplendent glory of immortality, 
till even earth's mistakes now righted are mere beautiful 
colorings in our robes of character. 
7 



98 LOOKING BEYOND. 

Clear truth is set in the laws of life's philosophy. 
The scientists of the ages have revealed it. Our Tyn- 
dalls and Lockyers, by a delicate adjustment of 
machinery, to " catch a sunbeam," have analyzed its 
elemental ingredients. If a ray casts the same shadowy 
circle as hydrogen when burned, that ray is hydrogenic. 
A closer analysis will reveal all the solar constituents ; 
and thence their native soils, waters, and atmospheres, 
and the inhabitants peopling that strange orb with its 
grades of civilization. Does not the least particle 
represent the nature of the whole? An Agassiz will 
construct an artificial skeleton of an extinct animal from 
a single bone, exactly as the creature was. A skilful 
physiognomist, from the sight of a hand only, will 
analyze the make-up of its owner. A psychometrist, 
from a lock of hair, or a letter, will trace the character 
and life history of its possessor. Our media, more 
scientific than they seem, living closer to the realm of 
causation, indicate in their powers of mind the influence 
of an unseen world upon them. As Professor Win- 
chell, of the University of Michigan, says, — 

" The unseen world is destined to become like a newly 
discovered continent. We shall visit it ; we shall hold 
communion with it ; we shall wonder how so many 
thousand years could have passed without our being 
introduced to it. We shall learn of other modes of 
existence, — intermediate, perhaps, between body and 
spirit — having the forms and limitations in space 
peculiar to matter, with the penetrability and invisibility 
of spirit. And who can say that we may not yet obtain 
such knowledge of the modes of existence of other 



THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST. 99 

bodies as to discover the means of rendering them 
visible to our bodily eyes, as we now hold conversa- 
tion with a friend upon the shores of the Pacific, or in 
the heart of Europe, or fly with the superhuman velocity 
of the wind from the Atlantic to the Mississippi valley ? 
Then may we not at last gaze upon the spiritual bodies 
in which our departed friends reside, and discover the 
means of listening to their spirit voices, and join hands 
consciously with the heavenly host ? " 

Those voices we hear, those faces we see, those hands 
we touch. Divine reality! Golden is the soul-breathed 
thought that inspired the mind of the ascended Mrs. 
Booth, published in Theodore Tilton's Golden Age : — 

" I feel a soft hand on my head, 
A hand whose touch seems overspread 
With balm like that the lilies shed 
O'er the white bosoms of the dead, 
And I am chill while memories fall 
Like odors o'er me — that is all. 

" I feel the rhythm and the rhyme 
Of thy dear life keep sweetest time 
With God's sweet sounds, and overclimb 
All sounds with which they interchime. 
I see thee — hear thee — feel thy breath, 
In the still air which answereth 
With lightest kiss whene'er I call, 
'Mid tears for thee — and this is all." 

"It doth not yet appear what we shall be," said the 
beloved disciple. Truly so ; we know not the extent 
of our work or influence. We now may have an 
unbalanced organism, which compels us to battle with 
self and the world ; and the superficial multitude may 



100 LOOKING BEYOND. 

classify us as "sinful," when in fact the soul may be 
struggling for supremacy. The purpose to o.vercome, 
though we may not to-day reach the goal, will, if 
repeated again and again, constitute a confirmed act of 
virtue in the "inner life." The skill we show in our 
works cannot be the full measure of our genius. How 
few can express in song or word what they feel ! We 
are all conscious of an "imprisoned fulness." What 
if our productions are defective and rejected in earth's 
markets ; the will to do and the deed accomplished are 
wares that sell well in the markets of the " City of God." 
The angels appreciate a finish, and cease not their dis- 
cipline over us until the external is the fac-simile of 
the internal ; but soul is their pupil ; and when this 
is active for good and purity, there is joy in heaven, 
though weeping on earth over failures. The eternal 
angel within is fashioned by ways not known, but 
rather discarded in our philosophies of etiquette. 
Courage! poor woman, bowed with care, sorrowing 
over the departure of all thy loved ones for the other 
home, leaving thee a riven monument of thy former 
grace and beauty; that look upward, that tear from a 
pure crystal fount, that voice of tenderness, that ear of 
pity, that defence of the wronged, are golden steps 
higher. 

O, orphan child ! so homeless, so forlorn, so unreprieved ; 
the little child-angels have not forsaken thee, nor has 
thy mother, early gone, — she is drawing thee fast to 
her arms of love again, for " it doth not yet appear what 
we shall be." O, weary mortals, blasted in expecta- 
tions, grieved over buried hopes, wrecked in the adven- 



THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST. 101 

ture for gain, — look up ! There is a beacon star shining 
through all this darkness — there is a light beyond — 
there is a voice shouting in this dread silerlce — * there is a 
hand to lead you safe over the billow, the moment a 
prayer of feeling, uttered or unuttered, trembles forth, 
reporting to the watch-angels the need of help. 

Yes, the dear one returns, and unlocks the treasury 
of memory. The cradle, the lullaby song, the garden, 
the brook, the maple tree, the birds that sang in it, the 
old armed-chair, the mother's anxious prayer, the 
father's pride, the school-house and church, the play- 
times w T ith the bovs and girls long ago, the sorrows and 
joys, the mistakes and victories, the sicknesses and 
bereavements, the "good by" and the "greeting," all 
are remembered then - — all seem then as life-chords to 
the soul, pulsing up to us the loves of other days, and 
leading us forward into new experiences, intertwining 
and blending in sweet accord — the past lived again, 
this time regenerated — the future but the light of 
which earth is the shadow cast into the focus of the 
living present; and we hear and we see, not by faith 
alone, but by knowledge of continuous and ever-blessed 
association with God's great angels ; and O, the heights 
and depths of the glory all around, of the glory all 
along the pilgrim-way ! 

If the price of this joy is the price of self-denial, of 
earth-partings amid tearful baptisms, that " purify the 
heart and overcome the world," how gladly should 
we pay it ! If such a price add also to the joy of our 
beloved, what should hinder us from securing " the 
prize of this high calling"? 



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